"I'll never truly be able to understand how you feel"

[pickyreader]

Hello everyone.
This question is mainly aimed at intact women, but obviously any advice is welcome.

My partner is generally quite supportive, but she's not really on board with intactivism. I think this is mostly because talk of sexuality in general makes her feel a bit uncomfortable, as well as activism, so she doesn't fully engage in thinking about it. She supports restoration because it's something that's important to me, not on it's own merits.

One of the things she has said is that she doesn't really understand how I feel - in the sense that she can't understand how I feel, as an intact woman who has had no intact partners. Obviously this idea has a little truth to it, but I think that for the most part it's erroneous. I can imagine what it would be like to lose a limb or fingers, and how those feelings would be different depending on the circumstances of the loss. I can imagine grieving for that loss.

Have any of you encountered the same? Did anything you said help your partner understand?

If you're intact (M/F or T), did anything your partner say help you to identify with him?

Thanks for your help.

[greg_b]

When I began restoring, my wife was simply hoping I would not hurt myself permanently.

As time went on, I brought some things to her attention when I read them, and we discussed things. Gradually she found out how good it feels to make love to a guy with a foreskin, and how the various issues around RIC can be viewed.

She is a strong intact advocate now.

Regards

[man_of_hapa]

Originally Posted by fredgsanford

I received the same reaction from from my wife, at first it broke my heart and I thought how the hell can I be more sensitive than a girl, and hey this is my wife why does she not understand what was done to me is horrible beyond what language can express, I was seized as an infant, taken from Mother by fiends holding the authority of medical practitioners that have deceived an entire culture into believing that amputating the foreskin of males and mutilating them is for the child's own good.

I was strapped down to a table with strangers looking down on me, bright light hurting my eyes, my foreskin was forcibly ripped back from my glans and a knife was used to cut me, to cut my penis open while I screamed helpless and enraged on the butchers table. Welcome to life.

Circumcision is a form of rape performed on infants and worse that has lasting effects. How the hell can she not understand my outrage?

Then after the initial shock of her reaction wore off I found it very refreshing and honest of her to be brave enough to speak her simple truth. We then discussed it in depth.

I applaud your wife and complement you both for having such a good relationship that your wife feels comfortable enough not to just tell you what she thinks you want to hear.

From what you wrote it appears you wish it were otherwise. I understand and as a male who is a fellow restorer I do understand how you feel and so do allot of other restoring men. You see we all have anatomy, and the desire to restore in common and other reasons such as most of us being amputated and mutilated on our private parts without so much as a by your leave and a feeling of betrayal that our parent did not protect us in common as well for example.

I for one feel like I have always felt estranged from my Parents for this very reason. That they betrayed me somehow has always been a feeling and I have always had a lack of trust concerning them. but I digress.

Your wife like my own does not have the same anatomy for a starting point of reference, nor any of the other complicated issues to contend with so of course it is natural for her to have her point of view even as it is natural for all of us to hold ours.

Sometimes I think the men who prefer the company of men and have them as partners have an easier time with this restoring business than us.

Heck at-least they have someone they can really talk to and discuss things with.

I guess that is why it is good to have forums like these for the rest of us.

(Oh by the way not trying to exclude anyone by saying the rest of us.)

In closing my wife and I do not discuss restoring. I do not feel the need to make her understand, her acceptance of what I am doing is sufficient. I obviously feel the need to discuss the issues concerning restoring and I think forums like these are the appropriate places for discussion.

For most people, I don't think it is important whether they "understand" or not. It's my body, it's my business, even if that wasn't the case when I was an infant. A lot of fucked up shit happens to children. 1 in 4 girls are sexually abused, 1 in 5 boys. There is a ton of sexual slavery going on, they are regularly coerced into doing all sorts of shit they shouldn't be doing, and thrown into the trash, sometimes literally. So a lot of bad stuff happens to a lot of people, it can be comforting to remember that we are not alone. Many people have experienced something like this. To be fair, the ones who haven't experienced any suffering, well, let's just say I want to personally introduce some suffering into their lives.

Anyway, I think it is important to make your S.O. understand where you are coming from. When I first told my girlfriend, she was looking up "circumcision" on wikipedia, which has a sentence that is like, "people debate whether or not circumcision is bad" or something, and so she comes at me with the line of reasoning of, "well so many people are doing it so it can't be bad". And she was actually arguing with me, when it was my body we're talking about here. Anyway, I explained to her her mistake as gently as I could, and showed her some literature. Turns out she was really shocked and had no idea. Mainly she couldn't fathom that authority figures can do something that is utterly bad and irredeemable, she's not used to seeing that kind of thing (maybe time to take her to a holocaust museum, no?). Anyway, I showed her these forums and some literature on the subject, and now she is a supporter. She asks me how my restoration is going sometimes, and even though she didn't experience any real pain in her life, having her support for me is huge. I think bringing your SO on board with what is important in your life is essential if you want to be close to your partner.