Hi, everything seems to be normal in the penis department, apart from the fact that I have a red stripe (about 1cm thick) running from my balls to the head of my penis. I first noticed it about 4 years ago, around the time I started masturbating, although I'm not sure if it was there before. It doesn't hurt, doesn't feel different to the rest of the penis and is relaly just embarassing. Any ideas?
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Red Stripe - Help Needed
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That's called the Raphe, and its perfectly normal. Every guy has a raphe, and its actually like a seam that was formed when you were still developing in your mother's womb. Essentially, we all start out as sort of female early on in the pregnancy as embreyos, then the Y chromosome kicks in and the male genitals form. Part of this process is the closure of what would have been the vagina opening. The opening closes together in the middle, and the scrotum and penis are formed. The raphe is the line of skin where the opening sealed, and it forms a perfect straight line of different skin color, that almost looks like a scar. Raphes are more noticeable than others from guy to guys. Some guys have very noticeable raphes that are easy to see, especially on the scrotum, while others are hardly visible. But we all have them. With some guys, the raphe is only visible on the scrotum in the middle, but some guys the raphe is visible from the scrotum continuing along the entire underside of the penis all the way to the head. This is your case. You probably never noticed your raphe before, because during puberty, the skin color of the scrotum and penis changes, and gets darker, and thus made your raphe more noticeable. It was always there, but now its more noticeable. Don't worry about it - it's perfectly normal, and as I said, every guy has one.
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I thought you were talking about beer at first... It's normal. Excellent post focus.
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Wow, thanks alot, that's really really helpful. just checking, its normal for it to be about 1 centimeter wide?
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mine starts off wider then gets more narrow towards the head... it is about 1cm widest part
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Sorry to ressurect this topic but what do you say to girls when they ask abotu it? Don't they tend to freak out abit?
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Chances are they won't even notice. If someone does, explain it to her, educate her and let her know that all guys have this same thing. For some of us it is more visible than others, just part of the equipment.