It's an innocent question from someone who cares. A common one. People are naturally going to ask you about an operation when they find out you are having one. I want to calm my friend's fears and let him know that it's just "day surgery," that I'll be "in and out." I use key words and nonchalant phrases to lessen the importance of the procedure, to get him to think, "Oh, day surgery, it must be simple removal of a bump or a tonsillectomy or minor carpal tunnel surgery. He'll be fine."

But I didn't have any of those procedures. Last month, at age 34, I was circumcised.

Oddly enough, I had found out just a few weeks earlier that I did, in fact, have bad carpal tunnel syndrome, and should have that operated on as well. Then I found out I needed a circumcision.  So I weighed both options. Which should I have first?  I decided it didn't matter.  Whether the first surgery was on my right hand or my penis, my sex life would be put on hold either way.

Many people become confused when I say I "needed to have a circumcision" because they've been programmed to think that this foreskin-removing procedure is either a) a choice made by parents for reasons religious or related to hygiene or b) there is something drastically wrong like infection or cancer. But I fell into a third category: I wasn't circumcised as an infant, and have never been able to retract the foreskin properly. I hadn't had any major problems like infection or pain or bleeding, but my doctor said I should have the operation while I'm still young because later it could progress to the point where I wouldn't be able to retract the foreskin at all. That means not being able to clean, and risking an infection.

Members of the pro-circumcision camp will use my case as an example of what men will have to go through -- ah, the pain and agony -- if they don't have the procedure done as babies. But the truth is that only a small number of us have to get it done as adults. (And my mom died a couple of years ago, so I can't ask her why I was spared the surgery as an infant.)

Although there are no reliable national statistics, according to Dr. Edgar Schoen, a clinician and researcher with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., about 10 percent of all uncircumcised adults at Kaiser have circumcisions for medical reasons. Usually it's because of hygiene, infections or sexual-related problems. Very few adults have circumcisions for cosmetic or religious reasons.

After all, why would men voluntarily give up their foreskin? If you like the synthetic lubricants, you should see what a foreskin can do, only naturally. No rawness, no ultrasensitivity. Before my procedure, the only thing that crossed my mind from time to time was the question, "Should I be able to clean under there, and is that going to cause any problems?"

In the "is circumcision necessary" debate, my scenario is almost always overlooked. When I researched online, I found many discussions on whether circumcisions are necessary for personal hygiene or painful to the infant; I also found long-winded rants on (yikes) foreskin restoration, which is basically the same procedure, only in reverse. But there was no information about others like me.