Rubbing Himself Until His Penis is Raw

An experienced masturbator has noticed his penis has become dry and cracked; after masturbating, his penis hurts but feels better in time. What has happened? Can he repair it, or is it permanent? Read on, get the facts, and find out!

Case #: 1672

Concern：

I am really embarrassed to be asking these questions and telling my story. I have noticed that I have dry skin on my penis. I am not circumcised and it is very dry and has sort of cuts on it. They aren't cuts, it's like when you have chapped lips and bite the skin off. I hope that helps to picture it. I haven't stopped masturbating since it started being like this and after a while of masturbating it starts to sting but it will eventually go away. The answer to the question I think you're wondering, yes I do masturbate a lot and I do it dry without anything, I masturbate raw. I am really hoping that my problem is as easy as that. Maybe you can suggest a way to help this [discomfort] go away and prevent it from ever happening again.

Discussion：

Western culture has a strange relationship with skin care as applied to men. On the one hand, we recognize that we need our skin in order to do our manly jobs. A hand without skin has difficulty keeping a firm grip on our tools, a foot without skin has trouble getting traction for those tricky home-repair projects, and a head without skin just doesn't bear thinking about. On the other, we're expected to tough out any pain or discomfort, especially for something as “trivial” as dry, chapped or cracked skin.

This leaves us vulnerable to the conditions or events that can lead to considerable discomfort and possibly serious infections. These assertions apply when we're talking about any given square inch of skin, but when we're talking about the skin on your penis, we have the added burden of embarrassment. It's sort of the first rule of Chuck Palahniuk's novel and movie Fight Club: “You don't talk about your penis.” So, to fly in the face of this objectively-verifiable detrimental attitude toward the health of your penis, let's take a look at what's happening when your penis looks as cracked and dry as a desert highway.

Layered Protection

The part of your skin you normally see is called the epidermis, and it sits on top of the dermis. The former is, in many respects, “dead” in the sense that there are no living cells in it. It still retains certain structures and compounds necessary to keep water from flooding out of (or into) the dermis, as well as keeping the layer flexible. The latter is “alive” in that the cells actively metabolize nutrients, produce sweat and skin oils and so on, and are served by blood vessels.

It can be a critical error to assume that the epidermal layer is just exterior “decoration”. Much like a layer of paint on the exterior of a house does much more than provide identification (“look for the blue house with white trim”), your epidermis is one of your first defenses against many harmful microorganisms that consider your living cells to be a delicious feast... and an excellent place to settle down and raise a family of millions of offspring.

Cracking Down

Your dried-out and cracked skin may have several possible causes. Among them are poor hygiene (infrequent washing), excessive hygiene (scouring the skin, use of harsh soaps and too-hot water, cleaning more than once per day, etc.), detergent residue on clothing, certain STDs, and excessive masturbation without lubricants. Consider what happens when you run your fingers up and down guitar strings while practicing or playing. Going a step further, it's very likely that you'll put something, even bandages, on your fingers if they're bleeding, but you won't do anything similar for your penis. Admittedly, your penis is a little more difficult to bandage, given how much the dimensions change between the flaccid and erect state, but you should still take care of it if it is injured. Even, or especially, if those injuries are from cracked and dry skin.

Informed Response

Assuming that you have not contracted an STD, you should experiment with hypoallergenic detergents, which are formulated for use by people with sensitive skin. You should also turn the temperature of your shower or bath down a few degrees; it's supposed to be pleasantly warm, not scalding. (Too-hot water can dry your skin.) Most importantly, you should use a cream or lotion designed specifically for use on your penis; remember, the skin covering it goes through more stress than almost any other similarly-sized portion of skin on your body. (TRY: Penile Dryness Relief Creams)

While you're experimenting with determining the cause or causes and letting the skin on your penis heal, you might want to ease back on your masturbation. Who knows, maybe you'll find a different form of stress relief while this one is recovering. Good luck!