My parents left me intact at the urging of our doctor, and I’m grateful. He only did one thing wrong, and that was to urge them to retract and clean under my foreskin often. That separated the skin from the glans and probably left my foreskin shorted than it would have been.
I remember the cleanings, usually in the tub. Whoever was bathing me would make me stand, roll my foreskin back, and rub the glans with a soapy washcloth. This always made me jump, it was such an overwhelming sensation. Erotic, almost painful, and too much to bear in any case.
I was fascinated to see the little dots of smegma before they got wiped away. If I thought about it and had time, while urinating I would retract my skin and wipe them off with my finger. I learned I’d have to wait all day or two before seeing them form.
Once I must have gotten of schedule for bathing, and when I went to check for smegma, I found a glans completely peppered with little white dots. I ran out into the hallway to show my sisters and they all gave the predictable “Eww!” response.
When I hit puberty and became more self-conscious (wearing deodorant, etc.), I continued to clean meticulously under my foreskin and dry it before closing. I started to believe that having an exposed meatus (the urethral opening) was normal. In college I had difficulty walking the long distances between classes without getting an erection. My pants were rubbing against the exposed tip of the glans, triggering a hard-on.
Only after I married and learned more about the foreskin online did it occur to me that I was overcleaning. Now I no longer use soap; just a water rinse, and not even that if I know I’m not going to have sex before my next shower. When I do rinse, I leave it wet before closing or I wipe some pure aloe vera gel over the glans to keep it soft. My wife likes the resulting texture and says it’s gentler on her insides.