The Real Coverage Index (RCI): Measuring Actual Progress
Why the community built an 11-level scale on top of the original Coverage Index, what each stage feels like — including the notorious Hump — and how RCI maps to your tracker.
Why a second scale exists
The original Coverage Index is good at one thing: describing a starting point. But restoration spends years between its waypoints, and a man at “CI-2” for eighteen months is making progress the scale cannot show. The restoring community’s answer was the Real Coverage Index — eleven levels, RCI-0 through RCI-10, built around what restoration actually looks and feels like in both flaccid and erect states, including sensation and the psychological arc of each stage.
How it works
Each RCI level describes four things: flaccid appearance and skin mobility, erect appearance, typical sensation changes, and what the stage tends to feel like to live through. Three levels are landmarks:
- RCI-4, “The Hump” — partial flaccid coverage that bunches rather than drapes. Widely described as the longest and most frustrating stage; knowing that in advance is half the defence.
- RCI-6 — reliable full flaccid coverage. Many restorers consider themselves functionally done here.
- RCI-10 — maximum development, with overhang beyond the glans (“docking length”).
Mapping RCI to your tracker
AntiCirc’s tracker logs the classic CI 0–6 plus a forced-erect coverage estimate, which together express most of what RCI captures. A practical crosswalk:
| RCI | Roughly | Log in the tracker as |
|---|---|---|
| 0–1 | No slack → first movable skin | CI 0–1 |
| 2–3 | Visible slack, partial glans creep | CI 1–2 |
| 4–5 | The Hump → most of the glans covered flaccid | CI 3–4 + rising forced-erect % |
| 6–7 | Full flaccid coverage, holds while active | CI 5 |
| 8–10 | Closed tip → overhang | CI 6 + forced-erect % |
However you label it, log consistently — trend beats precision. Update your estimate in the routine tracker monthly, not daily; coverage moves on a timescale of months.
Credit where due
The RCI was developed within the RestoringForeskin.org community (principally by the member posting as kong1971) precisely because lived progress needed a better ruler. This explainer is AntiCirc’s own summary of that scale; the archived original is cited below.