Well, there was the time I was making out with this girl at a rehearsal for a school play. No orgasm or getting stuck down with cum, but when you’re 16 and in mid-session you get called onto stage… Well first you shuffle and try to hide at the back because things are too big. Then things get too small and you shuffle around in a state of profound discomfort because there’s just no way to put things right.
And amazingly at 16 you’d go back and risk it again.
I did. 
It seems to me that everyone’s overanalysing this rather.
Without seeing the whole passage in context, I can’t be sure, but the most obvious reading to me (as an uncircumcised male) is that Bloom is uncircumcised, and is saying “at least the foreskin isn’t pulled back (i.e., retracted to expose the glans)”, because if it were then contact with his clothes would be a lot more uncomfortable than if it were in its usual position.
ETA: Or, basically what Blake said. I would have thought the reading is obvious to any male with a foreskin.
Am still here, cogitating (not masturbating, at least not now)…As should be clear from my user name, Ulysses by James Joyce (pub. 1922) is the most important book of my life.
Another owner of a foreskin, here, and my first thought also was that he’s grateful his foreskin is not retracted. Though him being Jewish would certainly make that odd, to say the least, and I can see how there might be other interpretations (heck, it’s Joyce; of course there are other interpretations).
Thank you, sir. I think I’ll procure a copy, and see what all the hubub is about.
The guy was born Jewish, therefore circumcised a week later. Then, in time, he was baptized (3 times?). I can understand a kid thinking that after being baptized he’s no longer Jewish, so the foreskin should grow back. I know this is stupid, but people, especially kids, believe all sorts of things related to sex, and this is kinda plausible. There’s also the fact that the head of the penis is a lot more sensitive than foreskin. So it’s a lot easier to masturbate in your pants if you’re circumcised, because of friction . . . but there’s a price to pay, in that when the semen starts to dry, it’s a little painful to pull away from the fabric. So he’s accepting the pain, because it means that at least his foreskin hasn’t grown back. Yes, I know that foreskin often retracts with an erection, so it doesn’t make any difference. But being circumcised, Bloom doesn’t know that. He’s happy that the baptisms didn’t “take,” affording him more pleasure in his pants.
LOL. I ready that as “STOP OR FUCK UP” which was just as confusing as the sentence we’re discussing.
STOP OR FUCK UP is my new favorite line.
*This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the foreskin is not back. Better detach.
Ow!*
Original excerpt. Obviously I should have given this first thing off the bat.
I think by not giving the correct source text until my previous entry–where the “Ow” comes after the comment about the foreskin–I have totally abused the intellect and good will of all.
It is academically scandalous (no sarcasm). I will try to use these comments–most of which have focused on the incorrect “Ow”/“not back” order as I gave at the top–as a sort of negative template. (I’m aware that there are other interpretations here.)
With regards,
Leo
The changes in cited text and interpretation have ended up puzzling me a bit.
Just to be clear: are we all now agreed that according to this passage, it seems evident that Leopold Bloom is not circumcised? And the fact that his foreskin wasn’t retracted (i.e., it was covering the sensitive glans) emboldened him to unstick the penis from the dried semen on his clothing?
Much as I tried to resist, I must weigh in on this.
I can’t quite figure out how it is both so wet to be uncomfortable and clammy and so dry that things are stuck like glue.
However, I can’t claim to be some sort of semen savant, so what do I know?
TMI
As a much younger man (hell, almost a boy still) for a while I regularly came in my pants. The sensation is warm, initially, but it does cool quickly. The gluelike qualities of semen in pants I can attest to, it becomes remarkably adhesive very very fast. Probably within 10 minutes, making an “adjustement” to unstick myself would have been at least a smidge painful.
About 2 years after starting this, I realized that it was much better to do this in the shower.
/TMI
Also, circumsized. Though neither of my sons are.
Said Joyce, laying down his pen: “That ought to keep 'em guessing.”
Did he lay down his pen, or something else starting with those three letters…?
Something entirely different.
In this he was ‘controlled’ by his penis, as if his penis was a separate living being with a mind of it’s own. After this beast gets the better of him he states at least it’s not reverting to it’s ‘wild state’ and is still somewhat tamed. With the implications that if the foreskin came back it would have been even more powerful over his behavior.
As soon as my damn head ache goes away, I will print out this thread and try to summarize the views.
Leo
I also took it as a joke, but along the lines of “this hurts a bit, but at least the foreskin’s not back (else I’d have to get circumcised again, which would hurt a lot)”. An “it could be worse” thing, if you will.
I “stick” by my interpretation.
Let’s not go off half-cocked…