The correct medical term for this condition is Hirsuties papillaris genitalis.

PPP is a very common and natural condition characterised by small, white, raised bumps around the corona of the glans penis. A 1999 medical study found that 48 percent of 200 men attending a department of genitourinary medicine had the condition. They are actually an enlargement of small sweat glands called Tyson's glands.

I can't recall when I first noticed my PPP but it must have developed at some stage during puberty. This caused me a lot of concern, even after I discovered that it was a normal phenomenon through my own research, other people's ignorance of the condition made me worry about how they would react to it. The most common concern is that PPP will be mistaken for a sexually transmitted disease, which it is not.

PPP is not caused by an infection or disease and is not contagious.

Luckily for me my girlfriends have all understood that it was common and completely normal and not worried about it at all. My first girlfriend likened it to the small bumps within the areola of her nipples, which apparently had caused her some worry in her teenage years. Like her, I found the little raised bumbs on her nipples no hinderance to my enjoyment of them, her breasts, or her whole body sexually. It's always nice to know that we're not alone in our irrational paranoias regarding our bodies.