Abstract Penile cancer (PC) mainly affects lower socioeconomic groups and those with less education. Patients who develop PC often experience symptoms for months before consult a urologist. The delay of the treatment affects the severity of the prognosis. Penectomy is still the best treatment available. This study aims to understand the meaning of the experience of patients who had PC and underwent partial or total penectomy treatment. Patients were approached and invited to participate. Upon acceptance, the nature of the research, objectives and all ethical precautions were explained. All patients were seen by the same psychologist. The technique used was the open interview. We interviewed 7 patients who had and treated penile cancer with partial or total penectomy. Data were collected through recording. Data processing followed the following steps: literal transcription of the interviews; description of interviews in formal language; first reduction seeking the meaning of the reported experiences; listing of the units of meaning of each of the interviews collected. The next step was to specify what is common in the interviewees stories in relation to their lived experience. It is possible to see that CP is a debilitating experience for those who live it. QoL is affected, as is the experience of masculinity itself. It is a very uncomfortable experience, both before and after the treatment. The patient with CP lives with the symptoms for a long time before seeking a solution. It is concluded that the PC has multiple variables, and the number of reports that talk about how difficult it was to reach at the diagnosis, not only due to the patient's own denial of symptoms, but also due to the inefficient care received in countless consultations, brings the reflection on the quality of knowledge of the professionals who provide assistance to this population in relation to PC. Financing CAPES.