In the United States today, a whopping 70 to 80 million grown men are living with genitals that were surgically altered when they were babies. That means that most Americans — unless they've traveled abroad, or are part of the millennial generation where intact penises are less rare — may never have seen a natural penis, except for a fleeting glance at a newborn boy.

On July 12, Intact America posted an interesting statistic on our Facebook page. "One third of young American men are mistaken or confused about their penis." Citing a study of 1,500 young men, half of whom were intact and half of whom had been circumcised, the post elaborated: "6% were mistaken and 27% were unsure if they were circumcised or not. Other studies have found that women are even more confused."

This post sparked a lot of interest, conversations, and personal revelations. Here are a few that left an impression on us.

I didn't realize until I was 15. — Conor

I didn't know the difference until my twenties. — Megan

I didn't understand until I was 20. I always knew something was wrong but didn't have the courage to ask or investigate. — Nate

For health class in the 9th grade, I had to read a 700-page sex-education book, and it had nothing about foreskins. — David

I had to tell my husband that he was circumcised. Thankfully, he had no issue with keeping our son intact. — Sara

I was raised in a fairly religious family growing up. While reading the Bible, I realized I was uncircumcised and almost did it myself in my bedroom...thinking it was what God wanted me to do. So glad I didn't.

— Sacha

When I was growing up, I thought that all dicks were supposed to look like mine. It wasn't until much later that I realized that all of us were damaged boys and that not all boys are cut. — Ken

As Amy commented, this is "sad, but it's not surprising. My husband didn't know whether he was [circumcised] or not until he was in college. If you've been seeing this body part as is for as long as you can remember, then why would you think that part of it was missing?"

And doctors, if they're born, circumcised and trained in the United States, are similarly ignorant. Until recently, many American medical textbooks showed only circumcised penises, making no mention of the fact that they had been surgically modified.

This will change, because the number of boys being kept intact is steadily climbing. For now, though, as Joseph said, "We've got an entire country to educate about anatomically correct male genitals."

Lamargo similarly weighed in: "The education has to begin in the medical schools to teach doctors and nurses the RIGHT way to care for genitalia of ALL people...YOU CAN'T GET BACK WHAT WAS TAKEN OFF!!!"

Educate, educate, educate!

The comments were truly overwhelming and eye-opening. Education has to begin earlier than medical and nursing schools. Sex education in schools has to teach kids about the natural body, the natural penis, and the facts about circumcision — that it's a medically unnecessary cultural practice, and that it removes an important part of the penis. And we need to teach EVERYBODY that the natural penis needs no special care, and that NOBODY should ever forcibly retract an intact boy's foreskin.

Most of all, we need to talk about all of this — we need to get circumcision and the foreskin OUT of the closet and into everyday discourse. The only way we can remove the stigma is to share the truth and educate, educate, educate. We have a lot of work to do, but you know what? America can handle the truth. And someday circumcision stories like these will be a thing of the pa

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