By Brian Brown © 2017
Read more from Brown at
Intact Connecticut,
Intact Pride, the
Intact Vegan Network, and join him along the
SOS Odyssey touring intact rallies.
Shortly after I graduated high school, I met my first love. He came from a strict family. My family was different - my parents were newly divorced, and I found my rebellion by piercing various parts of my face and bleaching my hair blond. We were literally from different sides of the world - but together we seemed to work.
One difference that I was unprepared for was the most private part of our bodies. He had something that I did not. In my youthful naivety, I sincerely believed that this was merely because he was a different race. I legitimately assumed that this 'extra' thing that he had was just something that Asians had and White Americans did not. During this time, I passed health class in high school but was still none the wiser, because this was never addressed.
Alex went off to college and we eventually parted ways. It was years later that I learned the truth about his body; and it was an ugly truth about my own.
We were not different at all - I had this part also at one point, but it had been taken away from me.
I knew without question that his body was normal - not mine.
I briefly found solace in
pretending I was normal. I used to hang out in internet chat rooms and pretend that I was intact. To lie to these strangers whom I would never meet absolved me of ever dealing with my own reality.
It was years later that my next door neighbor was having a baby boy. She and I were very close at the time and she reached out for advice. She was the first person that I ever shared my story with -- in its entirety -- with very personal, intimate details.
Her response, after I confided everything to her, is one that I will never forget: "We are doing it, no questions asked." It was that point that I realized my own personal experiences would never truly matter until her husband was willing to deal with his own issues.
I needed the courage to continue to speak up, to press on, to educate, to make real change. This is something I am so thankful to have found in
Intact Rhode Island. They empowered me in this way so that there are no longer any "No questions asked..." statements. I am providing the answers to these questions -- whether they are asked or not.
I am
Intact Connecticut and despite widely spread efforts to hide the truth, I am not afraid of misconceptions about the male body anymore.
Also by Brown:
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