sensei said:
I have heard this (that Japanese men wear their forskins back) and seen this, as well. I'm not sure it has to do with American influences though. What I have heard that when Japanese boys reach 12 or 13 they start skinning it back, sometimes by force, and even tying it behind their corona with strings or something. Apparently its very bad cultural etiqutte to show your glans covered in a sento (public bath) or onsen (hot spring), and it should always be retracted in these situations. I wonder what they think when my friends and I strut in with our foreign foreskins hanging loose?
When I first started reading this thread, I thought it was going to be a simple aren't-forskins-icky discussion, which we've thrashed out quite a few times before. But we stumbled down a few interesting new paths. A reason not to discourage rehashing old topics, maybe?
Sample of one. I'm on a conjugal visit to Tokyo at the moment. My Japanese boyfriend is asleep in the next room with his dick covered snugly, as he always keeps it. And he's a stickler for both etiquette and hygiene, even by Japanese standards.
Before we became an item, I visited some gay saunas/bathhouses/encounter zones in Tokyo and routinely struck low-level cheese. It's as inevitable as sweat in the armpit or (as Irvy points out) dirt under the fingernails. Even in such a fastidiously clean culture, things get dirty from time to time, and people live with it until they can get clean again. Rather like we do in the west.
As with most Japanese, my other half would prefer to smell a bit of honest sweat to a highly-perfumed deodorant. Heavy perfume is suspicious in Japanese culture; is it hiding some more profound uncleanliness? For a rich economy fond of luxury goods, fragrance sales here are low. Japanese designers like Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo design scent for the export market, and IMHO, do it rather ineptly. Kawakubo once tried to capture the essence of Tokyo in a scent, and tried to include notes of diesel, dust and corrugated iron. Needless to say, it never took off.
My man and I have never been great ones for
sento, so I'm not actually sure of foreskin etiquette there. What I do know is this: most Japanese shudder when westerners enter a
sento. As you know, one washes oneself before one enters the bath, in order to share the water safely, and there's always the nagging suspicion that we simply don't clean ourselves as thoroughly as the Japanese do.
The pre-bathing scrub is public and conspicuous--with its pots and brushes and long, snakey washcloths--everyone knows you're OK to let into a communal tub afterwards. By contrast, we westerners think we can get away with a quick rinse under a shower, or even worse,
clean ourselves in the tub! What they think of the way you and your pals wear your dicks pales into insignificance compared to what they think of how you scrub your ass, Sensei.
Under those circumstances, it very well might be a ritual to roll back your skin to show it's been attended to. But I suspect there's something different afoot.
When you soak in the tub, the water needs to get into every nook and cranny to fully revitalise you. I suspect that they wear their skins back for the sheer pleasure of exposing the head to the hot, theraputic water. It just plain feels good. The same deal with the cloth that goes on the forehead or over the eyes in a
sento. Leave no part of the body unsteamed.
I'll ask the boyf about this, when I can work out how to drop it into a conversation.
Do teens tie their foreskins back with string? Wouldn't put it past them. You name it, the Japanese will put a kink in it. It rings true to the kind of submissiveness and mild S&M that seems to pervade Japanese sexual life. I doubt that this has anything to do with imitating Americans, which the Japanese only do in the spirit of play.
Back to the original subject, Pectacular: the answer is
no. Unless you were trying to deliberately de-sensitise your dick (and the reason you would do this is because...?) I can't imagine anything more uncomfortable than wearing your foreskin back all day. It makes me feel incredibly sorry for circumcised guys, even to think about it.
Besides, it doesn't take long for my foreskin to creep back into its natural position. Whether it be in briefs, or even under a condom.
