I was about fifteen on a scouting trip, sitting alone in the sauna late at night. Two girls my age suddenly walked in wearing swimsuits, not realizing I was already there. What followed became one of the most vivid and confusing memories of my youth.
At first I felt painfully embarrassed. They were dressed, and I was completely naked. I had been planning to go swimming, but once they entered, I didn’t dare stand up from the benches. They smiled at me and asked jokingly if I had lost my swimwear somewhere.
My swimwear was actually back at the cabin. The heat in the sauna became too much, and eventually I had no choice but to get up. I knew they were waiting for that moment. I tried to cover myself with my hands, but it didn’t help much. My glans, which was always uncovered because I didn’t have a foreskin, was visible no matter how I tried to hide. I rushed straight into the lake.
I stayed in the water, hoping the girls would return to the sauna. Instead, they followed me into the lake. I thought it would be a quick dip so I could dry off and get dressed, but they stayed, and we ended up swimming together — me without anything on, them still in their swimsuits.
Later I waited in the water, assuming they would go back inside first. But they remained sitting on the pier, talking quietly. I felt as if they were waiting for me to climb out. The longer I stayed in the lake, the more self‑conscious I became.
Finally I decided I wouldn’t hide anymore. I climbed up onto the pier in front of them, fully exposed. They both looked at me, and the more talkative girl suggested we should go back to the sauna to warm up. She told me to come along too.
So we went back to the sauna.
I had never really been embarrassed about my body, and I assumed the girls had noticed that as well. Feeling a bit braver, I washed myself with soap at one of the washing tubs. The more talkative girl commented openly on my appearance — not only that my glans was naturally uncovered, but also that it looked larger than she expected and had a deep purplish tone. Both girls seemed curious rather than judgmental, surprised by the size and color.
Earlier, when I had tried to cool off by going for a swim, the girls had smiled and giggled, as if amused by the whole situation. I had hoped the cold water would help me calm down.
But they had followed me into the lake soon after, and nothing had really settled. We swam for a long time. Again the girls climbed onto the pier first, leaving me in the water.
At one point I stood up from the lake, fully exposed again, my glans clearly visible in the open air. They exchanged a look — curious, surprised, trying to understand why it looked the way it did.
The more talkative girl asked if she could take a closer look, wanting to understand why I didn’t have a foreskin and why the color and size were different from what she had seen before. I agreed mostly out of confusion and the pressure of the moment.
I froze in place, breathing heavily, unsure how to react to the attention. The quieter girl also asked about it, surprised at how my anatomy looked. She wondered aloud whether it had been surgically altered.
The whole experience left a deep mark on me, though I rarely spoke about it.
Afterward we returned to the sauna and later went swimming again. I spent several hours with the girls that night, moving between the heat of the sauna and the coolness of the lake.
Near the end of the evening, the quieter girl asked me directly why my foreskin had been removed. I didn’t know how to explain that nothing had been surgically done. I simply told her that doctors had decided it when I was young.
Later in life I realized that this simple explanation became something I repeated to other women who asked the same question.