An Aussie man has opened up about a traumatic decision he made after watching an episode of Sex and the City.
The unnamed bloke explained how one day he was watching the iconic HBO series with his siblings and the topic of foreskins was discussed by the characters.
The episode saw Charlotte date a man who is uncircumcised and how horrified she is by the skin. She was so turned off by it that she asked her boyfriend to get the snip for her.
The Australian viewer, who was also uncircumcised, was disgusted by the way the New York City pals spoke about the natural design for the penis.
"To sit and watch a show tell me that my body was revolting is something I will never forget. The women casually sat around the table body shaming men and their penises," he wrote on Reddit.
"After watching the show I knew I had to do one thing: get circumcised.
"Weirdly, I had been sexually active for a few years at the time, and no women had ever mentioned it. Somehow I convinced myself they were being polite."
He booked himself in to see a urologist, who happily organised for him to get circumcised purely on basis that it was cosmetic.
"In my opinion, he should not have agreed to perform the operation on somebody who was suffering from misguided self-esteem issues," the guy said.
"He should have sent me to a psychologist or given me a friendly word about how it didn't matter, or that I would soon no longer in the minority. He didn't do that. He made a booking to circumcise me."
The recovery post-surgery was rough but he thought it was going to be worth the pain because his penis would now look 'normal'.
However, his first feelings of regret creeped in when he tried to masturbate and found it was completely different (and not in a good way) to how it was before.
He added that the surgery gave him a scar on his penis and it's now a different shade of colour in some areas.
The anonymous man said he now massively regrets his decision because 'it's a part of my body I can never get back'.
"I didn't get circumcised because there was anything wrong with my penis - I did it because I felt shamed by American media and their immorally untrue message that foreskins are dirty and ugly," he said.
While Sex and the City is aired in the late '90s, the Aussie bloke said shaming uncircumcised men and their penis continues to be the butt of jokes in American TV shows and in standup performances.
"I literally had myself mutilated because of these messages, hoping that it would make me fit in. I cry for that 21 year-old kid," he said.
Topics: Entertainment, TV and Film, Sex and the City
Stewart Perrie