So around 8-10 years old I (M) was SA'd by someone a couple years older than me multiple times. This experience really hurt me and basically ruined any semblance of self-confidence or sense of self I had. Until I was about 14-15, I was constantly in a state of wondering what I had done for it to happen to me, multiple people I trusted telling me how "lucky" I was, and to be completely honest, a certain amount of anxiety around women. I was homeschooled and so I literally had no social life and no outlet outside of my toxic family to vent my emotions or talk with someone who understood. I just felt really really yucky, id constantly scrub my body in the shower for hours, sometimes until I was bleeding trying to feel clean, sometimes I'd stop bathing for weeks because I felt like there wasn't any point since i'd feel nasty snyways. I genuinely felt completely isolated and was desperate for any attention, any human connection that I had never had.
My coping mechanism and my way of dealing with everything I was going through was essentially to become void of all emotions, to stop feeling anything, and I stopped crying at 10ish, my smiles and laughter always felt forced, and just my hate for myself and for my body along with how emotionally unavailable my parents were made me feel constantly hurt. I was always really underweight as a kid and wasn't traditionally masculine and I got bullied and body shamed for being a "sissy" by my own family.
Eventually at 17 I finally had enough freedom to get Internet access and join discord and Reddit and I was so desperate to make friends or just to have literally anyone to talk to or connect with. I made some "friends" in a couple of friends and kpop servers I joined and being emotionally immature and having literally no experience socializing with anyone ever, I opened up and revealed far more about myself than I should have, in hindsight, to literal strangers who I thought were my "friends". It just so happened that these friends all knew each other, and were all 30+ year olds who identified as trans females and they were so kind and caring and interested, which I had never felt before, and I opened up, spilling everything about myself. After a few weeks, one of these people asked me, do you really think you're a male? They brought up how I mentioned I had liked movies and books with female MCs, written short stories with female POVs, always liked traditionally feminine things like pink and cutesy stuff and brought up how yucky and disgusted I felt by my own body.
In hindsight this is all sexist AF and incredibly stereotypical, but I was at a point where I genuinely wanted to be happy or atleast not alone and hurting and so I entertained these ideas, maybe if I wasn't enough of a boy, that meant I was a girl? And these so called friends started coaxing me into changing my pronouns, introducing myself as a girl, and even correcting my mannerisms and speech to be more "girly". I wasn't enough of a boy so they were forcing me to literally become someone else because that was the only way I'd love my body and be happy apparently. It only escalated from there and they'd constantly be forcing me into being "girly" and doing "girly" things and in hindsight I feel really really stupid for letting these ppl take advantage of me, like it was hurting me even worse and I felt so disgusted and icked out by myself but I still didn't establish boundaries and end it when I should have.
When I'd voice these concerns or say I didn't think I was trans, which was a lot lot more frequent during the first year, they'd convince me that "thinking you're not trans is proof your trans" and I was basically made to feel that I was feeling worse because I needed to reach that breaking point of being "girly" enough, trans enough, feminine enough that I would finally be happy, and so it was basically up to me to do anything to reach that point so I could be happy. Pretty early on these men (which is what they are I'm sorry) started introducing me to porn as a means of understanding and discovering my trans identity and it made me so uncomfortable. Like I had never been aroused or into porn but I was literally made to watch it because "all trans girls go through this phase to feel really girly" and one of these men, sort of the main perpetrator of this whole weird gang or whatever would basically convince me that to be a real girl I had to like penises, even tho I had never once even been remotely interested in guys at any point in my life, but in trying to be this perfect trans female that would be so happy and in trying to be whatever prevented version of what these ppl think is a "girl" i basically had to tell myself that I liked boys and I wanted to be penetrated when in fact even the thought just disgusted me and turned me off. The main guy even would make me watch micropenis porn and send me random pictures of micropenises and looking back with clarity and thinking about it now, he was literally sending me pictures of himself without my consent and I felt so yucky about it then but now looking back I feel so violated and I truly hate it.
There was also a point where I said I really didn't wanna be a girl and I felt more boyish, so they asked me to watch incest porn with "mommies" in it and to imagine myself as the mommy and being called mommy because that would apparently make me feel really girly and turned on and maybe that would be the final push into finally feeling like a happy trans female and it was in fact not, like I said porn disgusted me but those things turned me off even more and I was genuinely struggling with the disgust I felt not only for these things but the genuine disgust I had for myself for basically becoming an incel, even tho I suppose it wasn't voluntary, because ppl told me I wasn't enough as myself. I did drop these "friends" pretty soon because I genuinely reached a point where I dreaded being controlled and never feeling girly enough, but I guess the damage was done because I was seriously convinced I was trans, despite the self-loathing and disgust I had with myself. I even engaged in subreddits like egg and stuff and I was literally acting as a pawn for these creepy perverted people who liked forcing children to be trans to suit their fantasies in helping them achieve their goals. I feel like I literally aided predators and I can't help but feel so disgusted with myself regardless of my own circumstances or anything like why did I let myself fall so low? But I kept trying anything to feel that "girliness" and I reached a point where I started associating any good feelings with being trans. "I only made real friends when I was trans so it must be who I am" "I only felt happy doing this when I was trans so maybe I'm just in denial" but Everytime I had this euphoria it would be followed with extreme disgust with myself and just a massive ick and bouts of self-harm just to "punish" myself for not being a good enough girl.
I think I always knew I wasn't trans, but I was so deep into the rabbit hole that I even pulled my girlfriend into it and I literally became the literal monsters and abusers I hated so much, and I truly didn't mean it, it wasn't intentional, but the fact that I did that or even the fact that I encouraged other "eggs" to find their true selves instead of giving these vulnerable babies the support and safety they needed makes me feel so disgusted by myself. I hate how I acted so stereotypical and misogynistic in trying to be some creepy, perverted version of what these ppl think is a girl, and I don't wanna sound dramatic but now that my girlfriend has helped me leave that vicious cycle and instead of telling me that if I'm not manly enough clearly I'm trans that I can be loved as myself and that I can be a feminine guy and that's ok, I feel like such a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders I just love being myself and being a guy because it feels so natural. I still feel like those three years ruined my life though, 17-20 are such important years and I feel like I missed out and lost those years trying to be something else and I feel like I lost myself, I killed myself in those three years and although I do feel loved and I feel better now, I don't think I'll ever be myself again and I feel so so so just revolted and disgusted with myself and I hate my self for being such a disgusting creep I just wanna rip my skin off and do everyone a favor and just be gone.
I really want to be happy but how can I ever feel happy knowing I did the things I did or acted the way I acted or hurt the people I love and lost myself all because I was too naive and stupid to figure out that these people weren't my friends. I feel like I'm just struggling with these emotional and I guess it helps to know that there are other people out there with similar experiences and if anyone had smth similar happen to them and they'd feel comfortable sharing that would be really great? Thank you so much and I hope I didn't break any rules in my post.
I wanna just say that I am extremely against the use of labels and determining certain behaviors or items or actions or things as "girly" or "boyish" or masculine or feminine because that's reinforcing the same stereotypes that create this toxic cycle so I tried to put these words in quotation marks to express that I don't really truly believe that anymore.

the worship of big dick is a sign of a failed civilization, people are hypersexual and lustful and animalistic and love instant gratification and big dick obsession is how it manifests.
Real men have little dicks, it is a sign they are sophisticated and intellectual and thoughtful and disciplined. you will have a toned, aesthetic body and having your genitals protrude is just rude. Your masculinity won't rely on your male sexual organs. It won't be in the way when you're performing manual labor (not totally sure if things work like that) You have to learn how to go down on women. it just looks better
i am a lesbian. not a bitter man.

Anti-trans arguments basically have two prongs: 1) that sex is binary and immutable; and 2) that everyone must be forced to live in accordance with his or her sex, irrespective of gender identity. Deny either of these two prongs, and most anti-trans arguments logically fall apart. 1) is a matter of science, and 2) is a matter of morality/legality/ethics. So here I counter the first part. I am not going to concede here, as some do, that gender can change but sex cannot. The facts show a different story.
The first part is countered by showing that 1) is actually an a priori, dogmatic, unfalsifiable worldview against which no amount of evidence will ever suffice, and therefore not an evidence-based, scientific position, just like young-earth creationism, where any and all evidence will be fit, like Procrustes' bed, onto the worldview. YECs have an amazing ability to just handwave away any and all evidence. Endogenous retroviruses/transposons/etc. similar between species? Creation with similar genomes. Very distant objects seen in the universe? Starlight created in transit. Prevalence of parent to daughter isotopes? Accelerated nuclear decay or c decay. The fossil record? Hydrological sorting / God just putting them there to test our faith. The enormous genetic diversity found from a bottleneck of eight (or two)? God miraculously speeding up mutations without the species dying out from too many deleterious mutations. No transitional fossils between A and C! Wait, B was just found that looks perfectly like one? Well no transitional fossils between A and B! Etc., etc. You can always find some way to hand wave away evidence, but that's not how science works. You need to show your hypothesis explains the data better. And YEC clearly fails.
So let's first look at sex as binary or bimodal. The reason why scientists say sex is bimodal is because, while there are two primary pathways of development, both in utero and later during puberty, corresponding to what we call "male" and "female", there is overlap between the two. Males can develop female sex characteristics and vice versa. (This is commonly referred to as "intersex".) And this is because sexual developmental pathways are quite complicated, and there are many ways for the pathway to diverge from what is typical. Even with regard to gonads, there are people with ovotestiticular syndrome. How do anti-trans people deal with this? They take refuge in the fact that in the medical community these are termed "disorders of sexual development"; what the medical community means is that people with DSDs often will require additional treatment. But for the anti-trans person, someone still is truly (and binarily) "male" or "female" and something went wrong during the course of development; but we can still "tell" whether the person is "male" or "female". But this is a dogmatic a priori position. They are simply going to assign "male" or "female" no matter what. (I need to distinguish here a very weak argument made by some that sex is still "binary" even if a small proportion of humans don't fit into either category, as humans are still ten-fingered or bipedal. Well they are typically so, but not universally, and this is how we often speak of typical characteristics. But "binary" by definition does not admit of typical vs. universal. If there is any third option whatsoever, the variable in question may be categorical but is not binary; that's the definition of the term.) But (the more sophisticated debater will respond), there's a difference between sex itself and sexual expression/development. We're willing to admit that sexual expression or development isn't strictly binary but is bimodal, however sex itself is, even if on rare occasions the expression or development varies from what is typical. It sounds really sciency, and persuasive to the uninitiated. But at bottom it's a dogmatic statement of fact, not a scientific truth. What it shows is that you can choose to classify any set of objects according to any binary classification scheme you choose. But your scheme is a socially constructed personal choice, not a matter of scientific fact. No matter WHAT the physical characteristics actually turned out to be, you would STILL insist on a strict male vs. female classification.
Now onto sex being "immutable". Here we need to pin the anti-trans activist down on what, precisely "sex" actually is, and differentiate between physical characteristics that: 1) define sex; 2) are infallible indicators of sex; or 3) are typically associated with sex but may not be there; and also on what, precisely "immutable" really means: does it mean not even changeable in theory or just not changeable due to current technological limitations. Because there are many documented cases of sex reversal not only in reptiles but also in mammals. There are XY people with vaginas and XX people with penises. The problem, of course, is that if sex is DEFINED by phenotype, phenotype can change, and this is exactly what gender transition does. If the anti-trans activist retreats to karyotype, ask him whether he would admit that, if a CRISPR-like technology were invented that (for example) eliminated the Y chromosome, he would admit that sex changed. Moreover, he is forced to admit the existence of men with vaginas and women with penises. The latest tactic is to retreat to gamete production, but if that is a DEFINING characteristic then a man with testes removed is no longer a man; he no longer produces gametes. (A DEFINING characteristic must always be there.) In short, "you were born a man; you'll always be a man no matter how many surgeries/hormones etc." is a dogmatic statement, because everything physical (at least in principle) can be changed. A very weak counter argument is to say that your body's cells are "ordered" to gamete production. This is clearly false; after stem cells differentiate they aren't able to do anything else but what they do; a skin cell will never become a smooth muscle cell or a neuron.
So, in short, for anti-trans people 1) is a dogmatic statement and not a scientific one, and should be realized and treated as such.

A Recap of AskHistorians 2023-04-26 to 2024-05-02

Popular This Week: You might have clicked too early, so here are the responses to some of the most upvoted questions from the past week:

"Rome and Greece both made a vast number of marble sculptures of the male form, but did any of these sculptures have erect penises? And if so have any survived till today?" got two answers! One by aldusmanutius and another by virishking
"Was the Irish potato famine really a genocide caused by the English?And if so, why is it remember as a famine and not a genocide?" by wobblymollusk
"How did a medieval army take over a country with such small numbers?" by AgitatedWorker5647
"In the phrase “Ye Olde…” the Y actually represents a thorn (þ), which makes a TH sound in Old English. Why did the first printing presses not include this letter which was still being used in English at the time, and why did “th” come to be used to represent this sound?" by Yst
"https://www.reddit.com/AskHistorians/comments/1cg3jpn/how_did_the_soviets_and_allies_discove" by Frequent-Lettuce4159

Things You Probably Missed: Great stuff flies under the radar every week! Here is a selection of responses the Mod Team enjoyed, but didn't get the attention they deserved:

Still Looking for an Answer: Sometimes great questions don't get answered. Yet. Maybe you have the chops to give these the answer they deserve though?

“Why did goat milk lose out to cow’s milk?”
"Were Japanese homes really like that?"
"Did 1600s era European explorers actually refer to Japan as "The Japans"?”
And if you have only a few minutes to kill, be sure to check this week's "Short Answers to Simple Questions" thread, as you might see something you can help with!

Flair Profile of the Week: Looking for some old classics to read? This week the randomly selected flair profile is that of hannahstohelit, flaired for 'Modern Jewish History.'

Fun Things You Might Have Missed:

Tuesday Trivia: this week is Asia!
AMA with the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
Come say "Hi" in today's Friday Free-for-All

Features Coming Up::

The coming week’s theme, and the Tuesday Trivia casual thread, will be about Urbanization. So bring all your best questions and get your write ups ready for the TT thread!
Another AMA on May 15th with Peter Samsonov, author of the upcoming book "British Tanks of the Red Army and Panzer III vs T-34: Eastern Front 1941

Pet Patrol
On cloud nine after a trip to the groomers!

Plenty more you might have missed though, so as always, don't forget to check out the most recent Sunday Digest! For a complete archive of past newsletters, check out /BestOfAskHistorians.
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Why does our guarantee seem so fishy?
We haven't needed it and haven't really thought much about it until recently.
Our guarantee has been a moot point because we have not had any dissatisfied customers.
None.
Of course that could change today. Our nurse could call today and say that "Bob" is not satisfied.
We had one client who we decided to refund because we were not making gains for him. The reason doesn't matter. He was not going to reach what we told him he would reach.
We believe it was because his flaccid length is much longer than his erect length from years of PE. Something seems to have changed within his penis. Our nurse has never seen that much easy stretch with anyone else. She described it like a rubber band.
It's Monday and I just got off a 90 minute meeting reviewing all of our clients. Anyone can be dissatisfied for any reason. But no client is being neglected or ignored. We identified three clients for intervention. Sometimes it's as simple as getting their consent to keep emphasizing girth over length. All three that we identified this morning are getting a different chamber design that works better under their circumstances.
I see now that we need to update all of the wording about our guarantee. I appreciate everyone who pointed out our inconsistencies.
We are a startup whose product has been serving men for a couple of years, but we are just now launching as a business. Of all the things we've had to work out, the wording of our guarantee hasn't been a serious concern. Someone last year said we should provide a guarantee and the obvious safe answer was an inch of length and and inch of girth.
If a client thought they might make a claim on our guarantee then the wording and our calculations are important to them so we will get it right with clear wording.
Why isn't the guarantee simply BPEL versus BPEL?
Our process requires a flaccid penis. Because we do not work with erect penises, we have to infer erect length. The rule of thumb that we see urologists using is that erect and flaccid length are nearly the same. That was the case for Chad, for instance, as I recall. And everyone we have monitored.
A few years ago I used a formula to predict erect length based on the "effort" to reach a particular stretch. The problem we found is that EQ is out of our control. With low EQ everything comes up short.
A related problem we still have is men who refuse to reveal their erect length. Statistically we can't learn anything about erect gains from them. All we learn during interviews is that they are satisfied with their gains. We can see their stretch length progression, but have no baseline. The "Increase" column on their progress report is blank.
We could insist on a medically induced erection upon admission. That would provide objective erect length improvement. If we start having dissatisfied clients this might be the plan. It's going to cost money and require making two visits to a clinic that is qualified to perform the procedure. It's an option.
So what do you compare?
Without measuring erect penises we have to make an estimate. We ask for initial erect length (BPEL) as a basis. Then we track how much we have stretched the penis beyond that length. In our experience, at the end of our therapy period erect length will be about 85 to 90% of the stretch we attain during therapy.
For example, my therapy stretch is about 8.4 inches and my erect length is 7.3 inches. That is 87%.
Using Chad as an example, his BPEL was 7 inches when he started therapy. So we expect to see his base therapy stretch get to around 7.77 inches (7 / 90%). And in a week we got him there.
To add an inch of BPEL we need him to stretch to around 8.9 inches for the last month, or about 60 sessions. That 8.9 inch number comes from dividing his target 8 inches by 90%. (8.9 inches is a bit over our maximum length measurement, but we will get him there.)
In other words, we have about two months to stretch his penis (during therapy) by 1.9 inches more than the erect length he started with. Then we get in the extra 2400 stretches over the last month to ensure his BPEL stays 8 inches.
For the record, 10 days into therapy he has already stretched to 7.9 inches. We have about 50 days of the first 60 days to get that next 0.9 inches of therapy stretch.
That's the way we calculate it.
Implications
It's easier to add length with a longer initial length. We have treated very few average length penises which is why one inch seems so achievable. We probably need to rewrite our guarantee in terms of percentage of volume increase. Last week I got the data to look into that.
Using volume increase would also factor in the men who are more focused on girth. And it would provide a basis for post-PE men whose gains might have caused internal changes which work against us adding length.
Personally, I would feel good seeing a shift in our clients toward men with below-average length penises. While the feelings of all men matter, in my personal view some men need us more than others. We are already doing some of that by disqualifying men who have an erect or flaccid length of 7.5 inches or more. (It should really be 7 inches). We will have a limited number of client openings. I have my sympathies and hopes.
If you have a better idea I am completely open to hearing it.
Jeff Lewis

MOD NOTE: The mod team received this message recently from a local community member who we believe is sincere in their request for advice. PLEASE KEEP COMMENTS CIVIL. We know this is a topic which many of us have strong feelings about and personal experiences regarding. Comments will be closely monitored to ensure civility. As always, transphobia, personal attacks, and general hostility will not be tolerated. The complete message is below.
————————

Hello,
I have found myself in a situation where I don't know what the right thing to do is or how to accomodate everyone. I am reaching out for advice here on reddit because I don't know where else to go.
Short story: I am a gym employee in N. Texas and I have 2 members who are transgender females. As such they use the women's locker room. They are polite and have never caused any problems and I consider them friends of mine. I have never received a single complaint about them in the past 2 months I've worked there and known them.
Last night a woman complained that a "man is in the dressing room without a shirt on" and that it made her uncomfortable and she was not happy and said that "if I am required to wear a sports bra then so are they." At first I assumed that it was just someone being weird in the locker rooms, which happens more often than I would like to admit at the gym, so I was on her side and I was ready to tell the member essentially that walking around the locker room, mens or womens, nude was not allowed and that everyone should cover up when going from lockers to showers to the sauna, etc. I personally don't care, you wanna walk around nude, do it up, I'm here for it.
However, once I realized who she was referring to my entire opinion changed. I know these members and have talked to them many times. They are kind and polite and as they were leaving I put 2 and 2 together and realized it was them that the woman was referring to. I ran out into the parking lot to stop them before they could leave for the day and get their side of the story.
M, as I will refer to her, informed me that she was in the locker room and was changing, removed her sports bra, and was changing into dry clothing. To me this is not an issue as any other female member would not be reported for this as it is entirely normal locker room behavior.
M and her friend were both visibily shaken and embarrassed. I did my best as a heterosexual male to try to understand the situation but my experience is minimal at best. I told them that I considered them "my members" and that this was "their gym" and they had just as much right as anyone else to use it. I don't give a damn who you are, if you want to come to the gym I work at and be a member and follow the rules then I will advocate for you no matter what. I texted my GM and explained that I would not tolerate bullying of members by other members. I have had to kick men out for being disrespectful towards women there, I have no problem telling people to kick rocks when they are being shitty to someone else.
Today the company put out a statement to the employees that Texas legally goes off the gender shown on the person's driver's license and that that is what the gym will also be doing. I have no idea if this is right or not.
I understand their legal position and the GM did say that we could offer a private employee bathroom for M and her friend to use if they so desire, but I don't feel like that makes this situation any better and if anything just brings more unwanted attention to M and her friend. This may be the best solution that exists though, I don't know.
I don't know what to do. I don't understand much about gender indentity but I asked M who she identified and she said "as a woman" and I then asked "were you born male?" and she replied "that shouldn't matter." which I thought was a fair point, it shouldn't. As a man I don't go around the men's locker room checking everyone for penises. That's not my job and it's not my business.
So legally I get it, sure, we have to protect our company. BUT, morally I am struggling because I want to protect my friends as well and I don't know how or what to do.
I am going to find out what gender is on their IDs as I am comfortable enough with them to ask them that question and explain the reason for wanting to know and I don't feel that they will feel disrespected.
I'm scared though. They expressed to me that it is hard enough to come into the gym as is because they feel immediately judged. I hate that. I don't really know what's right in this sitaution or what's wrong but I need some help here.
I am not trying to out any members, or my gym, or anything like that but I do need some other view points.
If you all could post this anonymously for me so I could see the community's suggestions I would be open to that. Or I will take whatever advice you can offer me.
Please help.

Do not interact with me if (non negotiable): - You’re homophobic - You’re transphobic - You’re ableist - You’re racist - You’re 19 and over
What I look Like (Description):

Long-ish Red Dyed Hair normally in a ponytail of some sort bc i like red
Central Heterochromia
I dress emo sometimes, but whenever i’m not dressed emo i typically dress like casually feminine. Like shorts, thigh highs, sweaters etc.

About me:

Genderfluid (i RARELY EVER feel masc. but even when i do, it’s more ina demi boy way. But i still love being seen as a woman still. So please refer to me as you would a cis girl. Even when i do hypothetically feel masc it’s not for very long at all)
Transfem
AMAB (Assigned Male at Birth, i do infact have a joystick)
She/They
Lesbian (I love non men, so nonbinary people, women, genderfluid people etc as long as they ain’t a man. The closest i’d get to liking a man is if their genderfluid. I’ve liked someone who is genderfluid before so for me it counts because they aren’t a man all the time. I’m not attracted to penises, even if they are on a girl. I just have a genital preference)
Canadian
Cancer (although i don’t care for zodiac shit, i’m just mentioning it because y not) (I DO NOT HAVE ACTUAL CANCER I AM REFERRING TO THE ZODIAC)
Autistic, i can be slow and i may not understand the tone of your messages or comments or i might not understand the tone of my own messages. I am also shit at social cues
16 (I am a minor)

Music Taste: - Mainly Metal and Rock, but i don’t listen to it because the genre or band i just listen to it if the songs good. If they have good stuff i listen to it
Interests: - ATLA + TLOK - Pokemon - Star Wars - One Piece (Favourite Anime) - Naruto
If ur gonna dm me for any reason, at least don’t ghost me a day or two after. Because that’s just an asshole move

Not a question but I saw a full bird the other day that I used to work with, he's about to get a star pinned on.
He was a butterbar when I first met him.
I'm tired, boss.
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Is the army a good choice?
Good afternoon, I just got back from speaking to a recruiter who says it's obviously the best choice of my life, but will the army actually be a good choice for me? Background info, I am 27, I work for the federal government making $82,000 a year. I work 60-80 hours a week, 6 days a week. I love and hate my job. The recruiter told me that I would probably work less hours after all of my training and see my wife more than I do now, is he full of it or is that a possibility? I am not interested in combat positions, networks and logistics are more my interest
Sorry for the long post but this is a lot to consider. Thank you all in advance
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Deployment 12N
I’m leaving for basic training at FLW in 2 weeks as a 12N in the reserves. I was wondering what is the deployment likelihood for this MOS. I am not opposed to deploying just wanted to know for school purposes.
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So I've posted before my attempts to enlist. But I just heard back that my waiver (for gout) got denied. My recruiter kind of sounded like there was nothing to be done, except for maybe getting the diagnosis removed from my medical history, which I have no idea how to do.
For more context sent a waiver request in January where my uric acid levels were slightly above normal, waiver got denied. Sent another request in Feb where my UA levels were well within normal range, waiver got denied because they said the decrease was due to medication. I'm not on medication, so I got a letter from my doctor stating as such and saying I was healthy and fit for service. Sent a new request up, and it got returned saying "previously denied no waiver granted".
My question(s) is how do I go about getting the diagnosis removed/reversed, and if so will I still need a waiver for the gout if it's technically no longer on my medical history? Also is any of this likely to change the outcome? Is the juice worth the squeeze? If this will only result in a marginal chance for me to enlist then this all seems not worth it. If, however, getting this diagnosis reversed/removed increases my chances significantly, then I'll keep motivated.
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I am going to be signing my contract for my mos with a 41k bonus soon. But I also want to at least put in my packet for SFAS later down the line and hopefully get in.
When do bonuses get paid out and will I get to keep the money that I receive before I break the contract and reclass as 18__?
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This may be a stupid question.. but do recruits get a phone call their first weekend in reception? My fiancé left Tuesday and got to Fort Moore Tuesday night/Wednesday morning (around 1 am) I keep hearing a lot of different things..so any other info anyone may have is also greatly appreciated.
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I'm not in the army, and too old for it, but had a question : why do multi-colored shoulder cords exist, who would wear them?
I've read that the only shoulder cord approved for use on any army uniform is the blue infantry cord, but I've seen other cords (red cavalry, orange/red ordinance, etc.) for sale. Why would they exist to begin with, and under what circumstance would a specific color be worn? Would it be tied to one's MOS?
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My best friend is going to the VA tomorrow, he was sectioned out of the military for medical reasons.
Are there any tips for him? I had a fuckton of medical problems that weren't taken seriously and am giving him advice on that line - Making doctors take you seriously without sounding crazy.
Only two conditions, a tear in his thigh and his thumb being severed, are documented.
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Which selection process is more physically challenging, Civil Affairs selection or Psychological Operations selection? Or are they about the same?
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im only 17 i just been thinking a lot about the army but Idk i haven't even talked to a recruiter am just trying to see what jobs there or other than an infantry job
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Why is the Army so hard penised about these new 20 round rifles that can shoot further?
I thought it was volume of fire and the fact that small rifle arms outside 200-300m doesn’t really produce casualties?
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Hey! I’m getting ready to sit down and hash out my contract. I’m going for the 68 series, and would actually prefer 68C. However, I currently am a civilian EMT (hospital based) and want to work in an ER or still in critical care in the army. Would I only get that with 68W?
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Would it be dumb to reeinlist for SFAB as opposed to just getting out and getting a contracting job as a 35 series? On one hand there are still a lot of opportunities I'd like to take up like overseas rotations, schools, etc but on the other hand it feels I'd be leaving a lot of money on the table by staying in, because I could immediately make more than i do now if i get out.
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dumb question but what's the difference between 35P (Signals Intelligence Voice Interceptor) and 35S (Signals Collection Analyst)? Aren't both of them actually getting the signal information for someone else to analyze?
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Hey guys I havent been able to find a good answer to this question online or talking with my recruiter. I recently scored a 99 on the ASVAB and have chosen to pursue 35M/35W as a career path. This comes with a pretty big bonus, around 41k for 5 years.

My question is if I want to pursue SOF and I actually get to reclass as an 18_ , will I lose my bonus ? Is there a way I can get that to be part of my contract at MEPS?

Anything helps thanks guys.
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Question about postponing MEPS
So I’ve gone through the whole process of taking the ASVAB and getting all my files together now I just need to go to MEPS and sign the contract, but I really want the 18x contract but I didn’t get a high enough score, I would also like to give myself some more time to physically prepare myself for selection and preparation course, am I able to wait 3-4 months to go to MEPS or can I sign an 18x and ship off in 3-4 months, I kinda feel like if I were to tell my recruiter that I’d like to wait he’d think I’m not committed and stop working with me. Also I feel like enlisting active duty is a huge commitment and if I sign a 6 year contract I would want to spend one more summer with my family before heading out.
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Anyone knows what is the Ait dorm looks like at Fort Gregg-adams?
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Inter Service Transfer, attending 13F AIT. Looking for schoolhouse contact info as ATTRS doesn't have a POC specifically for AlT. Questions regarding travel, lodging, etc. Appreciate the assistance in advance.
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Mhs genesis
Checked my portal account today and nothing is on there. I’m currently navy and plan on getting out to go army. I know I will have to go back to meps, if genesis doesn’t have anything on my end does that mean I’m good? Thank you!
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I'm interested in joining the infantry, but issues with dieting have left me underweight and weaker than I'd like to admit(~135lb at 5'10), though I'm otherwise in good health. How much would this affect me in the short and long term?
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Any advice regarding basic training at ft.sill? I'm shipping in June and I'm so nervous. Also, any advice in regards to the 68w ait? I just don't want to be a f up. I want to be the best I can be, literally.
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Can I sign a contract if I am 17 years old and a junior in high school? or at least enlist?
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If i don't get a an airborne slot before i put in my sfas packet can I still go through SFAS and will the army put me through airborne if I get selected before I go through the q-course
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Invited to a future soldier program
I am in the process of enlisting and I was just contacted by a recruiter for a future soldier program. He said it was a 1 day experience to go to Montgomery and get a taste of basic, is that all it is?
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what happens if you fail a school required for an enlisted MOS? I'm fairly certain it's just needs of the army, but i would like to make sure. Is there anyway to have a back up option?
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So sorry ahead of time this going to be long. Recently my medical waiver got denied by SQ. 7 years ago I was diagnosed by my nephrologist which is a kidney specialist, something called glomerulonephritis. in short it’s a viral infection that affects the kidney filter system of blood, and protein in the urine, that you can get from a simple disease such as strep throat like I did. MEPs ordered me to go see a follow-up with my nephrologist who cleared me he even did an ultrasound to show there was no scarring on the kidneys and 24 hour urine and blood test to show the kidney functions are fine which they were. SG still denied it even after the test showed no signs or symptoms of having the glomerulonephritis anymore or at risk to contract again. My nephrologist even reassured me in all of his years as a doctor he has never heard of someone contracting it twice in their life. Is there anything I can do? We’ve done everything to show that there is nothing wrong. In the years I’ve been extremely active doing intense workouts and even compete in triathlons, and long distance races. All I want to do is be a Ranger and an opportunity to go. I can accept the fact if I failed at RASP but give me a chance
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I am not in the army, but am curious about how insignia works with one's MOS. If your MOS is 64C (truck driver), which is under the transportation corps, would you wear anything identifying you with your MOS or the corps that trained you?
I saw on wikipedia that the transportation corps has a branch insignia and a regimental crest.
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Long shot but if you enlist 35W do you have a better chance of being 35M(Human Intelligence Collector) or 35P(Signals Intelligence Voice Interceptor)? From what I've read it looks like that is based on the "needs of the army". Not sure if there's any way to get an idea of which the Army needs more of. Trying to decide 35W or 35F(Intelligence Analyst) is better. Seen alot of bad things about 35F on here
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Enlisting as a 25b first duty station is Fort Riley. Questions.
I got my contract yesterday for 25b with first duty station at fort Riley. my ship date is July 30th.
I know what most of you are probably gonna i mean its Kansas of all places, but what is it actually like at Riley.
If there are any 25b's who are at Riley or have served there what is day to day like, do you actually do your job, is it help desk, is it actual IT work?
Whats Riley's leadership like what can i expect i have gotten some information from other posts but couldn't find too much on it.
What unit could i possibly be with as a 25b, i heard most units in 1id get deployed/rotate to Europe what is that like.
If this is relevant would i have the free time to do college would i have free time at all?
From my last post talked to the station commander his words not mine he said “I’m trying to make some magic happen real quick” 2 days later as they were about to terminate my profile he calls me and says he got me the job went to the recruiting battalion an hour later and got the job.
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Can someone explain the whole process of taking the ASVAB at the recruiters office and then going to MEPS (that same day) and doing the PICAT? I don't understand how this would be preferable to just taking the test at MEPS, basically making it so that you only take 1 test instead of 2?
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Career options
Does anyone know what careers the army will pay for that will put me on the officer track? I don’t have my bachelors degree. Or should I go the ROTC route?
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So i’m planning on meeting a recruiter next week and starting the process of joining the army, i understand the air force could be a better option for smarter individuals but i really want to be a soldier in the traditional sense (i.e. going on ruck marches, training with weapons systems) is there any particular combat arms mos i should shoot for that i can eventually switch to a better civilian translating job in the future? should i just sign for a short amount of time in the infantry or as a scout and switch my mos to something that offers more specialized training?
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Can I join the army if I take famotide? So back story is I was very skinny and used to get stomach aches. Ever since I started taking this I have been rapidly gaining weight and feel good
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Shipping out in a month! After AIT; I have my designated duty station. My concern is; will Big Army allocate funds for my transition? I am single; with a doggo ( in process of seeking housing for him), and some valuable equipment ( musical instruments/ speakers) that would do wonders for my mental health. OCONUS
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Hi, I'm a current college junior who has completely run out of cash to pay for my last year of tuition. I recently took the ASVAB and got a 99th percentile. I really don't want to take a loan and honestly the job market is looking really ass right now anyways. I have a few internships under my belt but nothing really promising lined up as even though i have a 3.875 GPA I'm pretty terrible at networking and in my field (finance) that's a death sentence. I've always had an aspiration to be CIA/intelligence- and I got a high enough general technical score that I can go for counterintelligence specialization right away. How do I maximize my financial gain from this? What's my best path forward? I don't have a college degree yet but I will in about a year. I need the funds ASAP.
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I am an 18yo masculine presenting woman looking to join the army. What am I getting into starting off? What should I expect from people good or bad?
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Shipping out to Fort Sill on May 21 for BCT. Any tips/advice for training in the summer out in Oklahoma?
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Hey, so I’m at the stage of enlisting where I’m looking at jobs. I’ll be going to MEPs again on Wednesday to discuss my contract for the army and swear in. I’m currently deciding between 68W or 74D as my MOS.
68W- I do plan on going into firefighting once I finish my contract. So this MOS would be beneficial for that. My only concern is that I haven’t done anything medical, and haven’t had the desire to work in an hospital or doctor’s office. I’ve seen that this one is generally good choice as well for an MOS. Currently, I have the potential to get a $8750 bonus or a duty station of choice and Fort Riley.
74D(etail) - Yes, I’ve looked at different forums and subreddits about this MOS. I understand it isn’t the most favorable choice, but let me explain. I initially wanted to do supplies as a 92Y but unfortunately there are no available slots. From what I’ve seen, you’ll be stuck doing supplies and other tasks unrelated to your actual job title. I’ll be looking at no sign on bonus though, but I might be able to get airborne and a station of choice.
I do plan on talking to the counselor about these, but I would like some more insight from you guys.
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Is there any chance I could commission with a criminal record? I have a recruiter that has been reaching out to me. I just want to know if it would even be worth his time.
25m, got charged with a dui, and 2 5th degree drug felonies a few years back. I Went to rehab, Completed a diversion program and got all my charges dismissed and case closed. I know that it doesn’t matter if you were convicted or not in the eyes of the military. I would need a medical and criminal waiver.
Im a social worker now with a psychology degree. I graduated with a 3.7 GPA. I know that STEM is preferred.
I asked this over in Air Force Recruiting and pretty much got a resounding “no” minus the caveat that I could start as enlisted and possibly get selected after a couple years, but still unlikely. I wouldn’t want to get stuck around with a bunch of 18 year olds for two years with little pay, only to get passed over and stuck with them for another two.
Both my parents served, and I’d like to support the country too. But it seems like I kinda shot my self in foot with that one 🫠
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Qualification and medical history
Hi,I am 17 now,a high school student.I love US armed force and I want to join US Army after the college.I am a haemophilia B patient.Haemophilia is a bleeding disorder,I have to inject drugs once per 5 days for prophylaxis.I have undergone 2 surgeries before.As the bleeding is controlled well,my joints,bone and muscles are in good condition(my vision and hearing are normal).Recently,gene therapy for Haemophilia B is tested,it is proven to be effective.I can get cured once I have had gene therapy,no medications are needed anymore.Can I join the Army If I get cured?Thankyou for answering my question.If there is a Army recruiter,I beg for your views and suggestions.Thankyou so much.
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I am going through the process of enlisting now, scored a 74 on the asvab and am just waiting for the marijuana to get out of my system before I go take my physical. I have a medical card in my state but am fine with quitting to join and not doing any while in the army.
I am 28 years old and was curious how common it is to have someone enlist and go through basic at my age. At meps I was one of the oldest if not oldest person in there taking the asvab. Felt like an old fart haha.
I just don't wanna be an outcast I guess
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When you pick an MOS that requires a security clearance or TS when does the investigation process start for your clearance and what happens if you get denied while at AIT?
Also, I don't fully understand how the bonus payouts work is it all one lump sum and when do they generally get paid out?
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Hello everyone,
Long story short I am trying to take advantage of the ARR that came out recently because I need the points but have been struggling to find anyone that wants to join the Army.
Does anyone have any advice on what are some good ways that might lead to referrals? I am complete passionate about the Army and very much aware of what benefits people can get.
I've asked quite a few different people with no luck so far.
I think I am just a little awkward and don't know any good tips.
Any help appreciated and if you want to join send me a message
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I am about to go 35M HUMINT but my recruiter is telling me that there are only 35W contracts available. Says I will be going to DLI then to AZ

BUT, I have also heard that after DLI the army is going to decide whether or not I become a 35P or 35M. I only want to be a 35M

Any clarification
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Is 35W ever a 3 or 4 year contract? I saw in a previous post 3 year mentioned just doubting if it's worth it to wait for that.
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how long it takes top get a waiver aproved for suspended licence
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Wanted to verify that the temporary promotions prior to pme completion is still in effect. I saw the memo extending it another 12 months.
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Dumbass question but do you go on them field training missions regardless of your job? Cause on one hand, your still a soldier, but on the other hand, I hear those can be weeks at a time and then it’s “No you can’t go on that you need to stay here and get this shit done.”
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I took the ASVAB and scored a 90. The job I picked is Human Resources specialist. I'm wondering where would be a nice place to be stationed.
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worried about my doctor causing issues with enlisting.
i’ve only been with this place for a little over 2 years, but when i checked my patient portal a few months ago i noticed there was a diagnosis of osteoarthritis. no idea what it is, have never had ANY issues like that, so i asked my doctor to remove it and she did. about a week later, normal arthritis popped up. asked her to remove it again and she said she can’t since it shows up in my medical history because apparently when i first started going there and filled out paperwork, i put down that i had it. i definitely didn’t do that. i’m 20, i have almost no medical issues other than small things like eczema when i was 10. she said she can write a letter saying it was a misdiagnosis if i needed it for the army. is this going to cause me to get disqualified? i’m angry and scared at all of this because i don’t want this incompetent doctor to be the reason i can’t join. i’ve had tons of other issues with her but this is kinda the last straw thing and i really just wanna be able to join :/
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I was looking at tips for BCT and I saw people saying to volunteer for things, while other people were saying never volunteer for things during BCT. What do you usually do when you volunteer? And could someone explain the rationale for people saying do/don't volunteer during BCT?
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Met with a recruiter and began studying for the ASVAB and was made aware during the meeting that my MOS of choice (that comes with no sign on bonus) can put me down for a 3 year active duty contract. Should I do the 3 years or 4? I want to get the full GI Bill and VA home loan so would a 3 year get me that? What are the pros and cons for or against a 3 year or a 4 year?
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I left the Air Force about a year ago. Me being an 18 year old was having issues in my life went to mental health to get help. I was diagnosed with Depression mixed with Anxiety, Alcohol dependence, suicidal ideations, BPD(I do not have it), homicidal ideations(they put this on my record when I told them I never have had a want to kill someone. Having intrusive thoughts like most people, I said who doesn’t when they asked if I wanted to hurt people sometimes). I was stupid at the time. When my commander called me into his office one day, all the high command for my base asked me if I wanted to leave and me being immature at the time, I said yes. It took months and I even tried to stay in by asking if I could but they said “no, it’s too late”. I went to an Army Recruiter to see my options after I had gotten out and MEPS won’t even consider it. Fast forward months later, I’m a completely different person thanks to my wife and I now have a job in Law Enforcement. I still have the want to serve but no recruiters will ever get back to me. I’ve been to every branch you can think of. Will I ever have the chance to serve again? If so, what steps do I take to accomplish this?
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Got discharged from the Marines for alcohol. I’ve been through a 90 day rehab and have sustained my sobriety any chance of getting a waiver to get back in?
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Enlisting as a 15Q. Any advice/thoughts.
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I received these texts last week and have been avoiding reaching out to both Sgt’s. (I posted both photos)
Long Post: So the first text is from my recruiter who I’ve been working with for a couple of months. I got out last August and went to him to help me re-enlist. We found out that I had to wait at least 6 months because I was flagged for being underweight ( I never was btw. That was a lie!) So while waiting, I worked part time jobs and applied for school and was accepted! The second message is from a recruiter with the Reserves and I honestly wasn’t expecting her to reach back out to double check. Reserves doesn’t sound bad but Active duty is always where I wanted to be. I guess I’m just looking for advice on what I should do.
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Hi all,
I am a 28 years old male green-card holder with a master degree and interest in becoming a risk consultant (the type you would find working for Bain, Kroll, Boston Consulting Group, etc.) It is a very competitive field, and honestly despite me loving it very much I cannot compete with all the Ivy grads and their connection. It doesn't help that between my graduation and now I've been bouncing from job to job that has little to do with consulting and now my resume is a mess with experience in every field ranging from dog food to public transit for communities of color. I think about of going back to school, but I just got laid off at another job and my financial isn't good enough to support another master degrees (I don't even know what degrees I can take)
Then, I remember my boss back in my first internship was a former MI6 guy; my senior was some sort of analyst for the Israeli military; another one was some sort of officer with the Singaporean army reserve. There's a rumor in the fields that company like Control Risk and Bain have whole section stacked with former military, special forces, intelligence, and based on some of the works I've seen this seem familiar to the work done by the 35 MOS series.
So, my stupid plan is to join for three years on other MOS to get security clearance, reclass to 35 once I got naturalized and cleared government clearance, hope that I can be a warrant officer or even making it to the green-to-gold program, then retire and re-apply to be a risk consultant. I pick the Army over other branches because as far as I can tell, only the Air Force has a better quality of life but the Air Force doesn't allow me to pick my MOS.
I've already asked some mentors I have in consultants, but I also remember many of you here are successful people upon your retirement: does joining the Army in a field like intelligence/becoming an officejoining a more "elite" unit gives me an edge over others? Is my path feasible? Is the 35 series MOS the right choice? What can I do to set myself up for success in the civilian consulting world while in the army? I would like to ask for your opinion and hope you can give me advise/roast me/poke holes in my plan so I can plan accordingly. I am an old dude at 28, my shot at a professional career is closing up on me (you either enter a fresh grad at 22-26 or someone with decent three-year experience at 27-29), and honestly I am now a very lost man.
Thank you all for your opinions and feedbacks, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
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Hey, I ship out at the end of July and I saw that I'd have to do the rappelling tower at fort jackson. I'm not really scared of heights, and I actually think I'll enjoy it but I'm just wondering how to actually do it. Do I control how I go down or does the person at the bottom or top do it? and what do both my hands do when grabbing onto the rope? Thank you.
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Army or air force?
I got a 67 on my asvab, 22m and I don’t really know what job I want but I do want the benefits that come with enlisting. Is a 67 a good score in Air Force standards or should I stick with army?
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maybe someone who got one of these waivers will have the answer i’m looking for, i decided around September of last year that i was essentially rehabilitated from my depression diagnosis and stopped taking my meds, fast forward a few months and my mom gets a call from my doctor requesting that i get another prescription before dropping my meds cold turkey, (i had already stopped and i didn’t plan on getting back on meds so i just went with it but never took them) do i have a good chance of getting a waiver for medication i was prescribed in january and never took? i still have the full bottle of meds and i really don’t want to wait a whole year to enlist.
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I ship out for basic at fort sill in two weeks and I have a few questions. I’m in for 35N, and wondering how AIT is going to look for me (good fellow airbase). Additionally, my recruiter hasn’t given me much information regarding really anything. I don’t know what my ship out day is going to look like, and there’s a week between my ship out and when my basic is going to actually start and I have no clue what i’m going to be doing then. I still haven’t taken the opat, and I just feel nervous that i’m running out of time for everything. Also, since i’m going for 35N i’m going for TS clearance- how deep of a dive are they gonna go for the background check? And when are they going to call all my contacts that I listed on my packet? I feel just really in the dark and have no idea where to get any of this info. Lastly my active duty station is fort meade in maryland and I was told at meps by the 1st sar I may do some work at the pentagon- is that accurate?? Thanks in advance :)
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Interested in 2 separate MOSs, 27D and 35L. I’m mostly interested in 27D because I want to go to become a lawyer but I heard that there aren’t many slots left so 35L would be my 2nd choice. How is that MOS and what could I expect day to day (if you can even tell me anything about it without leaking anything lol)
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Just graduated from BCT yesterday as an 11b. I wanted to know is it possible to for me to go to officer candidate school ASAP and if it is who will I need to speak with. Will this delay me in anyway since I start my AIT portion of my OSUT on Tuesday, my main goal is becoming an officer and truly realized that as I was in basic training, where can I go from this?
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Heart, mind and soul set on 11b any way to increase my odds? I made a 51 on my asvab and am very interested in infantry, 20M and this is something I’ve wanted for a while. I really don’t want to accept anything less than 11b. Just wanting to know if it’s at all possible to figure out if I can increase my odds of being 11b. Really don’t wanna be an 11c. Please and thank you!!!
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I kind of feel bad about this, but at the same time, I kind of stand by saying this, so I'm curious which side of that internal debate is the more correct one.
So, I [23F] have been having a rough time lately, so I've been living with my oldest sister [32F] and her husband [34M] for the past 4 months, and I'm due to move into my own place in 6 weeks. Obviously I'm super grateful that they've been letting me stay with them, but they (especially my sister's husband) have been getting on my fucking nerves.
I have to admit, I've never liked my sister's husband. They've been friends since I was a toddler and have been a couple since I was in elementary school, so he's kind of always been a fixture of my life and he definitely makes my sister really happy, but I just don't like him personally.
He's in his mid-thirties and still really into the goth look and weird shit and just kind of being an edgelord (not in the Nazi way - he's thankfully very much the opposite of that - I mean in the "every birthday is another year closer to death" kind of way), plus he's just way too forthcoming with fucking downer facts that I don't want to hear.
Anyway, these shitty facts are part of what has really been getting on my nerves. He (and my sister, but she's also more aware of how little I care about or like these things so she does this less in my presence) loves sharing these facts that are either sad, weird, disturbing, or gross. Think like, talking about the ducks with giant penises or details of like true crime stuff I don't want to know or how whatever nice thing is actually corrupt or sad facts about atrocities.
He shares these all the time when I'm around, and it's annoying. He's stopped telling them to me directly, but he'll still talk about this stuff to my sister when I'm around. He does other things that get on my nerves (like talk about fucked up horror movies and depressing books he and my sister have read when I'm around or have impromptu date nights that he surprises my sister with and only tells me about the day of so I have to find a place to be on short notice), but the fact thing is the most upsetting.
So, earlier today, he mentioned this really creepy murder fact, and I just told him to quit being a creep. That really upset him, and he hasn't spoken to me or around me for the rest of the day, and my sister has been pissed with me too. Apparently, being called a creep is a touchy subject for him, but still, he was being a creep. AITA?

TL;DR: yes my dick grew, yes my hair fell out. Overall 8/10 experience.
To save myself space and yourself time, just imagine I’ve written “of course, there have been no studies on DHT in trans people, so no one really knows” after every single sentence of this post.
This is a really important point – all we’re working with when we talk about DHT in transmasc people is speculation from a few studies on cis males, and a couple of anecdotes from crazy risk-takers.
Here’s my anecdote.
I wanted to write the kind of post I would have loved to read 6 months ago. I’m going to try and be comprehensive, to detail my own individual experience as well as summarise as much research as I can. There’s a lot of half-truths and misunderstandings out there about DHT, so I hope this will help other people make a more informed decision about whether to try this experimental treatment.
Get yourself a cup of tea, this post is going to be long.
Contents:
What is DHT? Why use it? How do you get it? How do you use it? What were its short-term effects? What were its long-term effects? Would I recommend it?
What is DHT?
If testosterone were potatoes, DHT would be hash browns. Both are essential pantry staples, but hash browns are more processed and have a more specialised role to play in the hectic dinner party of your life.
As suggested by the name, dihydrotestosterone is a more complicated, delicious version of testosterone. Imagine a tiny little waiter sauntering around your body holding a plate of potatoes. Your innards enjoy potatoes but aren’t super excited – they’ll occasionally take one or two from the plate every now and then. But when the same waiter circulates through the crowd carrying a plate of hash browns, everyone wants a piece straight away.
This is similar to testosterone and DHT – there’s plenty of testosterone freely floating around your body, and some of it will get absorbed into various organs and tissues throughout the day. But when testosterone is processed into dihydrotestosterone, most of it gets snaffled up right away.
Your body naturally converts 5-7% of T to DHT every day. This happens at the same rate whether you grow your own potatoes or buy them from a pharmacy.
DHT has a number of jobs: sprouting body hair, causing male pattern baldness, and telling the penis to grow bigger at the onset of puberty. (See "DHT" in the reference list of this post for a longer explanation)
As DHT is known to be one of the triggers of male pattern baldness, the majority of research on DHT has been done in the context of hair loss. There’s much, much more science out there on how to reduce DHT levels than increase them.
The vast majority of studies on deliberately giving DHT to humans have to do with ageing (Kunelius et al.; Rosenberg et al.) or prostate cancer (Carson et al.), but none of these studies mention any penis growth. There are plenty of studies about DHT in rats, mice, dogs, fish and hamsters, but I didn’t read them because I’m not a rat, mouse, dog, fish or hamster.
Why use it?
Since discovering that DHT is part of the process that triggers penis growth in children during puberty, people have been wondering whether applying DHT to any old penis at any old time would encourage it to grow more.
A few experiments have been done, but mostly on small groups of young children with micropenises who haven’t gone through puberty. These studies generally show that DHT cream (or gel) directly rubbed into the penis over a few months results in a few centimetres of growth (Becker et al.; Bouvattier; Choi et al.; Evangelia Charmandari et al.; Hae In Lee et al.; Marouan Karrou et al.; Monfort et al.; Kaya et al.; Khadilkar et al.; Sasaki et al.; Susiana et al.; Xu et al.; Wong et al.)
Pretty encouraging! However, as children with micropenises usually have some hormonal, chromosomal or mysterious disorder affecting their development, it’s still extremely unclear whether DHT would have any effect on adults who don’t have any hormonal, chromosomal or mysterious disorders.
Of course, people have used DHT anyway. The most documentation we have about DHT in adults for penis growth are anecdotes from cis men who are trying to make their cis penises bigger. (See references at the end of this post.) Unfortunately, since they usually use a few techniques at once, aren’t consistent with their methodology, and are bad at updating, it’s impossible to tell what effects are caused by DHT specifically.
Like us, a lot of penis gainers are on reddit, where they form communities to discuss different penis modification methods. A lot of their information about hormones comes from bodybuilders. There’s quite a bit of crossover between bodybuilders and penisgainers – sometimes because steroids can cause penises to shrink, maybe because both are a type of gender affirming body modification, but also because both bodybuilders and penisgainers love a bit of amateur endocrinology. These guys are the main source of a lot of ideas about how to use DHT if you’re not a child with a micropenis.
While they’re basically doing the same thing I’m doing here – reading studies and experimenting on themselves without any medical training – I don’t view them as a trustworthy source due to things like pondering whether they should give DHT to their kids to ensure they have big penises (NO DON’T), and being overall kinda overinvested and a bit cultish sometimes.
However, both prepubescent children with micropenises and cis guys with average penises are not trans guys with t-dicks. What might the effects of DHT be on adult genitals that are in the process of changing? Literally nobody knows. There have been no studies on this. (See Grimstad et al. for a discussion on how much we don’t know – this is actually a banger paper.) All we have are a bunch of anecdotes from growyourtdick and one 13 year old blog post. Most of these posts give similar advice as the posts from cis men.
Despite all of this, I really wanted a massive cock, so I decided to give it a go.
How do you get it?
I live in Australia, where DHT is legal.
As this sub does not allow conversation about sourcing, I suggest Australians go to transgenderau to discuss this.
How do you use it?
Both my doctor and I were in the dark about the strength, the dose, and the length of time I should use DHT. Remember, there are no guidelines around this, only opinions by random people on the internet.
What we do know is that DHT is rapidly absorbed and used up by the body. This means that if you use it once a day, your DHT levels will spike and then drop. However, if you use it multiple times a day, your level won’t spike so high or drop so far. However, there’s no evidence to show whether a DHT rollercoaster or a DHT segway makes any difference either way.
My doctor prescribed me 10% DHT cream, and the chemist packaged it in an airtight pump that dispensed 0.5mL at a time. It was easiest for my lifestyle and terrible memory to use it twice a day: one pump after a morning shower, and one pump in the evening before bed. I applied it straight onto my genitals, as DHT is theorised to be so rapidly absorbed it should mostly have a local effect on the part of the body it's applied to (Fowler). This tube lasted 3 months.
A lot of advice on the internet says to cycle DHT – use it for a while, then stop using it for a while, then start using it again. After looking into it, I can’t see any reason why this would be relevant to trans guys. Cycling hormones is something cis people do so they don’t entirely wreck their endocrine system.
There are two ideas behind cycling. The first is that if you start buying hormones from a shop, your natural hormone production eventually shuts down. This can cause real problems for bodybuilders who take steroids– they lose their ability to make testosterone in their bodies. By using hormones for a little while then stopping, their natural hormone production doesn’t reach the point where it decides to give up.
The second idea is that the body’s hormone receptors burn out if they receive too much. You can think of hormone receptors as personal assistants who actually take the potatoes from the waiters and then pass them on to your organs. The idea of burn-out is that if they encounter too many potatoes or hash browns over time, they’ll just start ignoring the waiters. The technical term for this is downregulation. This has been shown to happen for transfemmes, who need to take increasing doses of estrogen over time as their receptors become desensitised (according to my doctor). However, the same has not been shown to occur for the receptors that receive androgens like DHT and testosterone (see Baskin et al.)
Studies that gave DHT to children did not cycle the medication – however, most of these children were prepubescent and had a syndrome that meant they were unable to convert T into DHT. This is a very different hormonal profile to cis men and transmasc people.
Transmasc people are a unique group – we’re happy with making drastic permanent changes to our endocrine systems, and we also have the ability to convert T into DHT. This means that we’re not really like cis men or children with micropensises when it comes to DHT, and research done on these groups might not apply to us.
I am not a doctor, but as transmasc people are already transforming their endocrine systems, and androgen receptors don’t seem to downregulate in the same way that other receptors do, I don’t think there’s a solid reason for or against cycling DHT. Taking DHT will not prompt our bodies to shut down testosterone production, and our receptors will not burn out. However, remember what I said at the beginning of this post.
What were its short-term effects?
I am nonbinary, so I use the term ‘bits’ instead of ‘clit’ or ‘dick’. It just feels more accurate at this stage.
My bits basically doubled in length, from 3ish centimetres to 6ish centimetres, stretched. More importantly was the thickening of the interior ligament. Before DHT I could feel a kind of solid, thin string inside my shaft, if you could even call it a shaft. DHT thickened this from a feeling like a string to feeling like a cord about the width of my pinkie finger. My overall girth did not change at all, but my bits are now longer, and the inside is more dense.
I began to get erections for the first time. Not huge, dramatic ones like a cis man’s, but still noticeably bigger. This didn’t happen before DHT. My bits are still very soft and squishy when I get aroused, but become about 5cm long instead of 3cm. It basically gets as hard as a cis man’s flaccid penis. It also pulses visibly after I come, which is cool. Having never seen another transmasc penis, I have no idea if any of this is typical.
My partner noticed the change. “It felt like it got harder when you were aroused”, they say, “and I’m able to really feel the difference in my mouth, is that too TMI?”
My inner labia also increased in size, which I absolutely do not love, and my outer labia sort of deflated and shrivelled to look more like a scrotum. My genitals look much more masculine now, which makes me happy.
I had to learn how to masturbate with my new length, which was fine actually :3 While my shaft is a lot less sensitive, the head still has the same sensation. The shaft is much dryer now, and made out what I can only describe as penis skin. It’s much thicker, tougher skin that what was there before, which is useful because I keep cutting it while shaving.
I’m so much happier with my bits now. I feel like I’ve basically achieved the average transmasc length, after being on the small size before that. While I was really preoccupied and fretting over the size of my genitals before taking DHT, I feel a lot more relaxed now. I still think about larger transmasc penises I’ve seen on the internet and feel inadequate sometimes, but it’s a lot better than it used to be.
While Swerloff et al. and Kaya et al. suggest that DHT levels are concentrated locally in the area it’s applied to, and don’t affect overall blood levels, I noticed changes all over my body.
To give you an idea of my basic character class before installing the dinky dick mod, I’m a small white person in my late 30s who’s been on T for about 2 years. Hormonal changes have been very slow for me, and I absolutely don’t pass as anything other than a tired old bisexual. I had top surgery about 4 months before starting DHT, and a hysto a few years before that.
It feels like DHT basically kickstarted my transition. I started experiencing all the things I was supposed to feel in my first few months of T.
From having no facial hair before DHT, I’ve now sprouted a full neck beard and now have to shave every day. Not my face! Just my neck from my jawline down. It’s actually infuriating!
My voice, while still in the female range, lowered significantly. I can’t shout for my cats to come inside any more, or scream, or sing. As a quiet person who doesn’t talk much, this has been a neutral change.
My skin turned into greasy paper, and I developed acne on my chest, which sucked a lot because I’d bought a year’s worth of see-through shirts after my surgery. My face started looking duller and older, and a few more liver spots popped up. I lost some weight in my cheeks and overall looked rubbish.
My sex drive was off the charts, which caused some stress in my relationship. Love, sex and my self-worth got entangled in a way that I was self-aware enough to realise but not skilled enough to escape. My psychologist helped me a lot here! I began to feel resentful towards my partner for not wanting sex, started having more elaborate fantasies about rougher sex, started watching a lot more porn, and more heartless porn. This upset me quite a bit. Stopping DHT has made the contrast between my libido then and now seem really stark. I’d still love to have sex three times a day, but it doesn’t feel like such an intense personal judgement on my soul when it inevitably doesn’t happen.
I have depression, and being on DHT coincided with a really bad episode. But it also coincided with Christmas and getting covid, which are always extremely tough times for me, so I can’t really say how DHT affected my mental health. I feel like my memory became even worse (see Nguyen et al.) but it’s impossible to say what caused it or if it was even real. Getting covid also meant I couldn’t assess DHT’s effects on exercise, as I was too tired to do much.
Finally, the butt hair. Oh god, the butt hair. I now have an extensive exfoliation routine for my butt so I never have to deal with ingrown butt hairs again. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
What were its long-term effects?
About a month after I stopped DHT, I noticed my hair starting to shed more than usual. It turns out the minoxidil I was using was actually past its use-by date.
If you look up “male pattern baldness stages”, I’m now a classic stage 2. I’ve lost two triangles of hair above my temples and now have a pronounced widow’s peak. I actually love my new hairline, and think it looks rather dashing, but my hair is still falling out. As my dad went bald in his 20s, I’m extremely nervous. I’ve bought topical minoxidil that isn’t out of date, and I’m considering oral minoxidil or finesteride.
I’ve now been off DHT for 2 months.
My libido is back to normal, my skin looks better, and the acne is gone.
If I was an extremely organised person, I would have requested blood tests immediately before and after taking DHT. Unfortunately I’m a silly goose pretending to be a competent adult, so all I have to compare is my hormone levels from 1 year ago.
Interestingly, my E and T levels have basically both doubled since this time last year – Oestradol has increased from 113 to 341, and Testosterone has increased from 20 to 39. I haven’t changed my T dosage in that time, but whether this change is related to DHT is unknowable. It would be great if other people taking DHT could do further research on this.
At 2 months out, I haven’t noticed any other effects from stopping DHT.
Would I recommend it?
After going off DHT I can now reflect on how moody and sexually frustrated I was. It was actually quite a psychologically intense time. While I don’t love my new neck and butt hair and am worried about balding, I’m much happier with my genitals.
For me, the money, the effort and the problems were worth it.
While everyone has seen me freaking out about my hair and has counselled me not to do another round of DHT, I’m seriously considering it. I want to say that I did everything I could to increase my size. I don’t want to wonder if there’s something else I should have done. It really is between my hair and my bits right now.
When deciding whether to start DHT, ask yourself: would you be ok if your hair started falling out, you got acne, your sex drive consumed your thoughts, you got really annoying body hair, and your dick didn’t grow? It’s a real possibility.
If, like me, the chance of growing slightly larger is worth a few shitty months and the chance of a shiny chrome dome, then I hope this post has been useful.
I don't check reddit very much any more, but I'll log in next week to see if anyone has any questions they'd like answered.
References
Random people’s opinions on the internet:
https://www.reddit.com/gettingbiggecomments/oqanlj/dht_the_definitive_guide/
https://transguys.com/features/dht-transgender-men
https://mattersofsize.com/topic/dht-gel.27425/
https://mattersofsize.com/topic/dht-penis-growth-theory.1815343/
https://www.icliniq.com/qa/dihydrotestosterone/i-applied-dht-for-eight-weeks-to-increase-penis-size-can-i-do-so-for-another-cycle
Actual studies:
Baskin, L. S., Sutherland, R. S., DiSandro, M., Hayward, S. W., Lipschutz, J. H., & Cunha, G. R. (1997). The Effect of Testosterone on Androgen Receptors and Human Penile Growth. The Journal of Urology, 158(3), 1113–1118. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5347(01)64400-864400-8)
Becker, D., Wain, L. M., Chong, Y. H., Gosai, S. J., Henderson, N. K., Milburn, J., Stott, V., & Wheeler, B. J. (2016). Topical dihydrotestosterone to treat micropenis secondary to partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS) before, during, and after puberty - a case series. Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism : JPEM, 29(2), 173–177. https://doi.org/10.1515/jpem-2015-0175
Bouvattier, C. (2014). Micropénis. Archives de Pédiatrie, 21(6), 665–669. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arcped.2014.03.016
Carson, C., & Rittmaster, R. (2003). The role of dihydrotestosterone in benign prostatic hyperplasia. Urology, 61(4 Suppl 1), 2–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-4295(03)00045-100045-1)
Choi, S. K., Han, S. W., Kim, D. H., & Lignieres, B. de. (1993). Transdermal Dihydrotestosterone Therapy and its Effects on Patients with Microphallus. Journal of Urology, 150(2 Part 2), 657–660. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0022-5347(17)35576-335576-3)
DHT (Dihydrotestosterone): What It Is, Side Effects & Levels. (n.d.). Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24555-dht-dihydrotestosterone
‌Evangelia Charmandari, Dattani, M. T., Perry, L. A., Hindmarsh, P. C., & Charles. (2001). Kinetics and Effect of Percutaneous Administration of Dihydrotestosterone in Children. 56(5-6), 177–181. https://doi.org/10.1159/000048115
Fowler, P. A. (2019, February 14). Move over testosterone, another hormone is also vital for making boys – and it doesn’t come from the testes. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/move-over-testosterone-another-hormone-is-also-vital-for-making-boys-and-it-doesnt-come-from-the-testes-111877
‌Grimstad, F., Boskey, E. R., Taghinia, A., Estrada, C. R., & Ganor, O. (2021). The role of androgens in clitorophallus development and possible applications to transgender patients. Andrology. https://doi.org/10.1111/andr.13016
Hae In Lee, Kim, S., Kim, S., Lee, M., Song, K., Suh, J., Yong Seung Lee, Hyun Wook Chae, Kim, H.-S., Han, S., & Kwon, A. (2023). Effects of Androgen Treatment on Growth in Patients with 5-α-Reductase Type 2 Deficiency. Journal of Personalized Medicine, 13(6), 992–992. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm13060992
Kaya, C., & Radmayr, C. (2014). The role of pre-operative androgen stimulation in hypospadias surgery. PubMed, 3(4), 340–346. https://doi.org/10.3978/j.issn.2223-4683.2014.12.01
Khadilkar, V., & Mondkar, S. A. (2023). Micropenis. Indian Journal of Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12098-023-04540-w
Kunelius, P., Lukkarinen, O., Hannuksela, M. L., Itkonen, O., & Tapanainen, J. S. (2002). The Effects of Transdermal Dihydrotestosterone in the Aging Male: A Prospective, Randomized, Double Blind Study. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 87(4), 1467–1472. https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem.87.4.8138
Marouan Karrou, Najoua Messaoudi, Imane Assarrar, Alla, A., Rouf, S., & Hanane Latrech. (2023). Efficacy of Transdermal Dihydrotestosterone and Testosterone Enanthate for Penile Augmentation in Patients With Idiopathic Micropenis: A Comparative Randomized Study. Clinical Medicine Insights. Endocrinology and Diabetes., 16. https://doi.org/10.1177/11795514231208328
Monfort, G., & Lucas, C. (1982). Dehydrotestosterone Penile Stimulation in Hypospadias Surgery. European Urology, 8(4), 201–203. https://doi.org/10.1159/000473517
Nguyen, H.B., Loughead, J., Lipner, E. et al. What has sex got to do with it? The role of hormones in the transgender brain. Neuropsychopharmacol 44, 22–37 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-018-0140-7
Sasaki, G., Ishii, T., Hori, N., Amano, N., Homma, K., Sato, S., & Hasegawa, T. (2019). Effects of pre- and post-pubertal dihydrotestosterone treatment on penile length in 5α-reductase type 2 deficiency. Endocrine Journal, 66(9), 837–842. https://doi.org/10.1507/endocrj.ej19-0111
Swerdloff, R. S., Dudley, R. E., Page, S. T., Wang, C., & Salameh, W. A. (2017). Dihydrotestosterone: Biochemistry, Physiology, and Clinical Implications of Elevated Blood Levels. Endocrine reviews, 38(3), 220–254. https://doi.org/10.1210/er.2016-1067
Rosenberg, E. A., Bůžková, P., Fink, H. A., Robbins, J. A., Shores, M. M., Matsumoto, A. M., & Mukamal, K. J. (2021). Testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, bone density, and hip fracture risk among older men: The Cardiovascular Health Study. Metabolism, 114, 154399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.metabol.2020.154399
Susiana, M., None Fajar Avicenna, None Reny I’tishom, & Teofilus, J. (2022). Efficacy of hormone therapy on stretched penile length in micropenis: A systematic review. World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 16(3), 467–471. https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2022.16.3.1362
Xu, D., Lu, L., Xi, L., Cheng, R., Pei, Z., Bi, Y., Ruan, S., & Luo, F. (2017). Efficacy and safety of percutaneous administration of dihydrotestosterone in children of different genetic backgrounds with micropenis. Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism, 30(12). https://doi.org/10.1515/jpem-2016-0400
Wong, N. C., & Braga, L. H. (2015). The Influence of Pre-Operative Hormonal Stimulation on Hypospadias Repair. Frontiers in Pediatrics, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fped.2015.00031

Here’s the thing: there’s one 100% solution to this problem. Single, personal bathrooms. Nothing else. That’ll be incredibly expensive and is completely unrealistic in the short term.
Forcing women into this situation? Won’t change a thing. You’ll hear trans people saying: “I don’t feel fully accepted by women in our bathroom.” Berate and label all you want, it’ll never change that. It’s not transphobia causing this issue - though I guarantee that’ll be the explanation. This is a mini version of Iran saying “I don’t think our women are Muslim enough.”
If that’s the only acceptable view you have as a solution? Cool, that’s your opinion. Oh, you are against the genocide in Gaza right now? Damn… then you fully supported the Oct 7th massacre. Because you have to - you view issues as “my side right other side bigoted.” There’s no room for grey area in your worldview. Palestinians are increasingly in favor of what happened that day due to the anguish they’re living through right now… bc duh. That’s still an antisemitic view. Looking vise versa? It’s an Islamaphobic (Muslimist?) view if you have the opposite opinion.
I’ll accept the label I was given - it’s my friend’s turn now. Pick one. The only other option is to just not care about widespread death in general and never talk about the subject… which might be the worst of all options.
I think there’s middle ground. You’ll never, ever, ever. Ever, ever, ever get the fully inclusive feeling in the bathroom you’re looking for as a trans woman… unless a cis woman actively chooses to go in with you. “Choice” and “freedom” go together. So my idea involves three bathrooms: cis women’s, men’s, trans women+cis women (possibly even universally shared 🤷‍♂️). Women want to be empathetic and inclusive! Positive social change takes time: let some cis women - who are comfortable - go into the shared women’s bathroom, others will notice, more will feel comfortable going in. Will every cis woman end up in the shared women’s bathroom? No! Will the women who voluntarily go into the shared bathroom be in a fearful situation? Nope! Will a trans woman feel fully included with the cis gender she identifies with in the bathroom? Yup! She just isn’t in the bathroom with all the possible cis women in her immediate area.
It’s not about forced inclusion of everyone into a bathroom. It’s about creating a feeling of inclusion for everyone. Safety. I understand that’s not going to be an acceptable solution to everyone. It does create a blueprint of what the end goal should be, and a loose outline on how to get there.
Trans women and I share something very important: neither one of us understands what it’s like to be constantly wary of a physical, sexual disadvantage. Both of us need to understand the responsibility of being born with a penis and try to imagine the power of the feeling it can create in others who were born without one.
In my solution, what if a trans woman without GRS thinks it’s still bigoted/exclusive and goes into the cis woman’s bathroom as a social justice warrior? Well, just like me, she’ll leave the area handcuffed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Penile system couples as the new description for where she’s assigned to be incarcerated. Men and women are very different, but penises are one and the same.
And ladies… let’s try to remember that statement is also inclusive when two, consenting adults shut a bedroom door.
Yes, some issues affecting only (in this case, cis) women should be advocated for by men who believe it. And yes, stands like this from its nature from a straight guy looks like I’m viewing women as damsels in distress saying “save me, save me” as they hop on my bicep that magically got strong enough to support her entire weight. That’s… a cliche for a reason: it actually brings a legitimate, masculine feeling and it gets mocked waaaay too much. It’s that same feeling that’ll sustain me for the 1000’s of battles my future woman will fight (and win!) for me - on things I had 0 chance of winning by myself. Aka… the roles flip on this all the time; dames get distressed too!
She’s doing that because she sees me as her Superman :)
For literally one thing I did for her 8 years ago. We can milk one of those moments into 10+ years of couch potato. You’re statistically the smarter gender, right ladies?
I guess I really wrote this because I despise issues where people feel nervous to speak out… and this clearly is one right now. I felt the need to as a guy who understands women self-sacrifice basically their entire lives. It’s a way more nuanced conversation than we’re all having in general about this issue, but it’s important to have: all people need to feel comfortable with the solutions.
——-
[Update! My dear, dear friend reported me 😢… A day later. :) Seems like someone let my words sink in…
If you can’t internalize something, it comes right back out in a negative, external way. As someone once told me: “a hurt dog barks.” Dog analogy wasn’t a smart decision on his end, because his next move really invites a much more common dog metaphor thrown between people. 🤐]

So long story short, I married the love of my life last year. He’s a transgender man who’s hyperfeminine and doesn’t wish to medically transition (his chest is already really flat, to the point you wouldn’t know that he had breasts so he doesn’t see a need to have surgery there).
I am a gay cisgender man, I have a lot of trauma revolved around penises and cisgender men, so when I learned that some men do have vaginas I finally understood that I wasn’t aroace, but gay. (I know that not every trans man has a vagina.) I’ve always been attracted to feminine men, but the penis aspect always disgusted me and put me into panic attacks. I knew that I was attracted to only men but penises heavily triggered me and I quite despise how everything was only about having sex and nothing more than that. It felt objectifying.
However, when I met my current husband he was the most gorgeous and understanding human being I have ever met. He wasn’t toxic with his masculinity, he wasn’t misogynistic, he wasn’t gross or perverted, he wasn’t obsessed with sex, he wasn’t like everyone else. We held conversations for hours and really opened up to one another pretty quickly, I’ve never had such good chemistry with anyone before.
I also have a thing for short men so that was a plus. But he’s very kind-hearted and intelligent, he’s so empathetic and adorable I just love everything about him. His fashion sense is really cute too.
Anyway, I have been called a chaser for merely dating a trans man. If I say I have a preference for men with vaginas It’s treated as if it isn’t normal? It’s completely normal to me for men to have those genitals, for a man to look in any way and still be a man. Men have anything just like women have anything down there. I’m gay and I like men, I would never view him as any different.
I’m just traumatized, I don’t actively seek out trans men to only have sex and not see them for who they are. I’d never go against my own community like that, let alone have such a disgusting mindset.
I have told people before that I just have a lot of trauma to deal with and I love my husband and wouldn’t change it for the world just because of their opinions. I am the happiest that I have ever been in my life, and I love him. I’d never leave him because some online person said that I fetishize trans men.
So I wanted to ask trans men on a platform that isn’t the hellfire known as TikTok, would I be considered a chaser for my preferences due to my trauma?
TDLR: I’m a gay cis man who prefers men with vaginas instead of penises because of my severe trauma, I got called a chaser for it a lot, but am I really?
(Granted I’m questioning if I’m agender.)

So i recently dated a man. Despite him being smart and funny and very cute, i just didn’t really feel anything towards him. Maybe we just weren’t compatible, but this isn’t the first time. I’ve dated a lot of guys, mostly out of boredom and loneliness. Men are pretty easy to get into relationships with, especially as a hypersexual woman. I’ve found that these guys seem to be in a completely different mind space as me though. Throughout all of my relationships, I’ve felt that the lack of genuine interest in the other person was a mutual feeling. I’m often caught off guard when I end things with a guy and he reacts as if I’ve actually hurt him. I don’t know. I’ve liked these guys enough to wanna be their friends. I usually initiate physical touch or sex because I assume it’s what they want. I’ve struggled to enjoy sex with men. I can get horny and feel as though I want to hook up with a guy, but the feelings during and after intercourse are not good. I feel shameful, unsatisfied, uneasy, uncomfortable. I’ve also convinced myself that I just didn’t like kissing or sex for a while. I know for a fact that I don’t ever want to marry a man or have kids with one. If not for my constant impulse to find men, I would be fine being single for the rest of my life. Unless, I found a woman who I liked. I haven’t dated women, so I have no idea how that would go. I had a short term gf in highschool, we shared one kiss. Honestly, it was the best kiss I’ve had. The only kiss that left me feeling all mushy inside. I had a porn addiction as a child, and I watched mostly lesbian and gay porn. Specifically, videos of women wrestling half naked. I’ve gone through phases where I was obsessed with certain female porn stars or ig models who tend to post more revealing pictures. I’ve never had this same interest in men. In fact, I’m not all that crazy about male bodies. However, I do like penis. I’ve often thought about how great it would be if women had penises, or if you could just detach a penis from a man. I also think part of my obsession with penis stems from gender envy. I do wish I was born a boy. I think attracting women would be significantly easier as a man. I don’t know. The constant “am I gay” battle has been going on in my mind forever. I actually started crying while on a date with this guy, because my brain just randomly came to the conclusion that I was absolutely gay. That’s why I couldn’t feel connected to him, even though I really wanted to. It’s all weird. Maybe I’m bi or asexual. I have no idea but I’m tired of stressing about it

"As aliens of the future with large investment portfolios," said the head alien, "I think it is important we go back in time and tell those stupid humans about our coq bags."
The other aliens in the meeting room nodded their giant penises in agreement. "Mmm," said one alien of lesser rank. "They should know what we know."
"Yes," said another alien. "If they appreciated coq like we do, they might do themselves a favour and suck the living coq out of those 'centralised exchanges' they love so much."
"Maybe they'll store them in hard coq wallets instead!" chirped a fourth alien. "Where their coq belongs!"
The giant-dicked aliens were unanimous: one of their ilk would go back in time to save the humans. To tell the humans about coq...

It's been a massive week down here in Australia. All eleven people in the country have been working really hard to pay for child support, methamphetamine, and in my case, coq. I myself worked over 14,000 hours this week. My coq bag is full and ready to blow.
Unfortunately though, my wife's boyfriend Jamal has been making life really difficult for me. He blocked my access to the family wifi, which means I can't access my favourite centralised exchange without my phone (which my wife confiscates every evening at 10pm). He did this because apparently my porn usage is slowing down the connection. So what if I watch coq videos all day? He isn't even into crypto. What does he need fast internet for?
Anyway, the reason this week has been so busy is because of Easter. At the gay bar where I work as a gimp, the week before Easter is the busiest week of the year. I have to dress up in a leather rabbit costume and put vibrating "Easter eggs" in my arsehole for tips. I don't think it's fair that I have to split tips with the bar staff, but they're pretty great guys so I put up with it. They always ask me about my coq. I like to show them my coq when it's going up, which is most of the time. As a matter of fact, I like to show most of the men at the gay bar my coq. They are jealous of how big it is. Sometimes they even show me theirs. I like to look at gay men's tiny coq bags when my arsehole is vibrating. It makes the day go a bit faster.
Working hard is fine. The only problem lately has been my inability to constantly check on my coq after hours, because of Jamal and my massive bitch wife. She never wants to see my coq and much prefers to make me watch Jamal give her pleasure.
So I bought a new phone from a customer.
Once I cleaned the stains off, I noticed he had forgotten to reset the phone before selling it. Shocked, I found a lot of compromising videos of me at work on his camera roll, which concerned me greatly. There was a strict 'no filming' policy at the gay bar. I called my manager to complain, but he didn't answer. I was worried that the videos were online somewhere.
No matter what I googled, I couldn't find any videos of a coq-addicted rabbit shoving large spherical objects into their arsehole for cash. I did see some things I can never un-see, but I was calmed by the likelihood of not being a viral homo sensation. Still, I didn't want anyone to get away with violating company policy. So I decided to track the customer to his house and kill him. Otherwise, other customers would think they could get away with it.
I was busy sharpening my knives when my manager called back. I thought he would be proud of my loyalty to company policy, but he seemed a bit miffed. "You're going to kill him?" he asked, incredulous. "But he didn't even post it online?" I didn't care. I wasn't backing down. He offered me 40,000 Bitcoin to make me not do it, but my mind was made up. I was going to do murder for the first time. It kind of excited me...
That night, after Jamal rawdogged my wife sideways twice up the clacker while she begged for more, I snuck out my bedroom window with my knives and skulked towards the customer's house. I was halfway down the street, when suddenly, I was illuminated in flashing red and blue. The cops! Shit! I sprinted away, but unfortunately my haunches were weak from vibrating all day, and I was easily caught. Handcuffed and squirming, I begged them to let me get my coq out so I could pay them to let me go. They somehow misinterpreted this and started sucking me off. It was conflicting because they were men and I am not gay at all. Not even a little bit. Still, I preferred this torture to a lifetime behind bars, so I let them keep going. I'd never received oral sex before. It was quite interesting. I'd seen my wife do it to Jamal every time he had a birthday, but never actually stopped to imagine what it felt like. It was nice. Kind of like when the priest used to put the vaccuum cleaner nozzle on my penis to "hoover the devil out of me" when I was a boy. I didn't like that priest very much. He was ugly.
Anyway, when the two cops eventually made me cum I got on with the job. That rule-violating customer lived about three blocks away, according to his Snapchat location. I thought it would be funny to send him a few snaps of my coq from his own account, to confuse him. But he sent back some really gross photos, so I disengaged.
I was almost at his house when a spaceship suddenly crashed in front of me. A disgusting alien emerged from the wreckage. It had over twenty giant penises.
"You should meet the local police," I quipped. The alien didn't seem to care. It looked at me hard. "I come from the future," it bellowed. "I am here to tell you that $COQ INU token - an obscure crypto coin you may not be aware of - will eventually replace all known forms of currency, shortly after it is listed on what you humans currently refer to as Binance. To bring peace to your world, you should spend all your -"
"I know that already, fuckwit," I said, brushing the alien aside. God, what an idiot. Everybody knows that. I did a pooey fart behind me out of disrespect. The alien coughed once and died. "Good," I thought. I hated aliens.
I got to the house and squatted in the bushes for a bit, casing the joint. I wanted to make sure the cunt was home before I went in for the kill. Some lights were on in his house, but apart from that it was quiet. I waited patiently for signs of life. Suddenly, my new phone pinged. It was another foul Snapchat from the previous owner of the phone. "I know you're outside," the caption began, superimposed over a dimly lit picture of his gooch. "Come in here and touch my blossoming flower." Damn it! The Snapchat location feature! We were using the same account! My sneak attack was ruined!
I was about to go in and see if I could get a tip for blossoming his hairy flower when suddenly I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I swivelled just in time to see the big frame of Jamal sprint out of the shadows and spear-tackle me into the driveway of the customer's house. I heard my wife's voice in the background: "That's it baby! Fuck him!" Jamal, out of breath, wearily complied. "You shouldn't... have bought... a new phone," he said between thrusts. For the next fifteen minutes I listened to Jamal grunting, my wife cheering, and my new phone pinging with Snapchat notifications (as the customer recorded the violent assault in his driveway and sent it to his own account for later).
"Don't you ever disobey me again!" screamed my wife as Jamal finished up. I sighed. I knew she was right and that I should not have, but I needed the ability to play with my coq at night. Otherwise, life wasn't worth living.
I decided to bring up this sentiment at the next family meeting, which was usually held on Tuesdays (after Jamal played golf). That meant I had a few good days to think up a way to convince my wife and Jamal to let me have wifi access again. As the ideas rolled in, I checked my coq. It had gone up.
Phew.

Some time in the future, two cops and a handful of aliens met up in a park. They had the time of their lives. A viral Snapchat video of a rabbit and an electric watermelon played on repeat the whole time. An ugly priest and the manager of a gay bar jerked off and laughed maniacally to the whole thing.
Jamal played golf. He finished under par. My application at the family meeting was rejected.
As usual, coq went up.
Again.
The moral: stay vigilant 🐓

On a bit of reading from the subreddit, I’m actually unsure if my glans is keratinized or not (I’m intact…but have a naturally short foreskin.)
Are there any characteristic symptoms of this, from those who have had it both ways? I don’t have personal experience with any other penises, so don’t have any direct basis for comparison.

Today at CSL selling plasma I checked the stats, at least those available easily from my $50 WallyWorld phone while hooked up to their complimentary Wi-Fi. I now have twenty-two paid marketing offers from music blogs, influencers from TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, and internet radio.
I highly recommend Musosoup. I've been targeted by many, many scammers offering promo - most of them more skilled than Thomas Wayne Randle in their practiced online deception skills. Though, really, being better than Tommy Tiny Penis at anything isn't an achievement worth mentioning. Musosoup is a great site that acts a verifier and insurer of both parties involved. The founder of the platform, Chris, personally reviews all applicants for quality assurance. About a week after I submitted my album Hostile Witness for consideration I received a personal email response welcoming me on board. The site is familial in nature and functions well without any kind of bullshit underhanded attempts to extract funds for little to nothing in return. Very uncommon in this industry I've come to find out. It is an honor to be amongst the artists assembled there. I would buy a t-shirt with their logo if they offered one for sale. I am described as quirky in my pitch to advertisers as well as the more expected 'male vocalist, US-based' tags. Hee hee. I was informed on the outset not to get discouraged if I didn't get any offers since my genre isn't easily definable as some others and my subject matter is - well, if you're reading this on DeviantArt you're probably aware of my favored subject matter. Within a week I had more than I could ultimately afford before they expired.
The first week of April I will be featured in my first actual print magazine in the UK - a 500-word album review of Hostile Witness.
Dr. Monika Demmler featured Is This- on an Instagram reel. Besides being classically gorgeous and talented as a recording artist, her short-form video was something I let loop while tethered to the Dracula machine. It amused me in more ways than one, my cynical writer's mind finding handholds to climb on. It also garnered not only complimentary comments but intelligent ones. I can now add being compared to time-honored writings of Aldous Huxley to being described as a cyborg spewing forth chaos and anarchy through news channels. I'm growing slightly more sympathetic to artists who come off as arrogant in interviews. Slightly. By the way, if you're unfamiliar with Aldous Huxley's catalog of published writings, he is most famous for The Doors Of Perception, usually packaged with the equally short Heaven And Hell. My favorite of his is the novel Island, which was mentioned by Terence McKenna in one of his lectures and took some constant searching in the nine area Half Price Books locations to find a copy of. Anyone interested in hallucinogens especially will find useful insights in both men's output. If I'm not mistaken Aldous's wife also penned a posthumous memoir of their lives together.
A TikTok influencer used Immediate Improvement over footage of a track event. That makes me smile. If only I could be counted as an accelerant towards a better civilization. I paid another one today with five million subscribers for a similar feature. I promise I'll have a definitive list of names as soon as interweb access is more prominent.
Spotify reported almost 1,600 more listens in the past five days. According to the time-delayed stats reported by my distributor, Distrokid, somewhere in January I passed the 14,000 listen mark. Streaming service plays are paid in billionths of a penny. That's a zero with a decimal followed by ten digits. Each service pays a different amount. Tidal is the highest paying at slightly over a penny. Meta [Facebook/Instagram/Threads] coughed up two cents for 590 plays two days after my albums debuted on October 30th. Apple pays well comparatively, but they're listed as three or four separate services at different rates. Google [YouTube] is listed as at least nine different entities. It has also been reported by a separate site that my tracks have been played almost 1,900 times on internet radio stations - not counting my feature on Formula Indie. It remains to be seen if ASCAP can squeeze any cash out of the now defunct Vurbl site, where they reported over 1.5 million listens in six months.
Besides the US, which is to be somewhat expected considering my listed geographic location (San Antonio) the city of Helsinki, Finland is positively jamming to my shit per capita. Today there were also nineteen cities in Germany in a row where listens had been recorded. Ukraine and Israel also seem to appreciate my noisy anger. The Prophet Obblonge pairs well with bongs and guns.
Thank you to everyone for reading and listening. In two days er so I'll be back at CSL to get sucked out again.
Also worthy of note: as much as I loathe the constant money money money awfulness of LinkedIn, someone anonymously went through a large chunk of my catalog and gave the entries thumbs up yesterday. I have found a small but vocal group of contributors there that have other things to discuss than (ugh!) monetization and synergistic expansion through calculated risk data analysis.
Have set aside the headphones, guitar and MIDI controller temporarily to binge watch Fringe, Millennium, and the classic Thriller series hosted by Boris Karloff. A lot of the episodes of the latter were either directly converted to teleplays or based on stories by Robert Bloch, most famous as being the writer of Hitchcock's Psycho. I only wish my love Patty were here to help critique the art displayed. Oh. And have sex with. A lot. As a fifty-six-year-old who has been mired with tiny-penised juvenile Republicants her whole life, she has much to look forward to.
It is a common notion that to be an artist one must also partake in the appreciation thereof. Stephen King underlines this in his non-fiction On Writing. Over the past few years I have barely done that, being far too focused on the extraction, production and capture of my own output. Eleven tracks into the sixth album something in my cranium insisted I take a break, if one can label research and development leisure. It remains to be seen how my personally defined methods of improvement hold up. Modifications are always necessary for proper evolution.
See you soon....

Fort Mumbleblarrg has grown more than a few charred scars on its outer walls and roof, but demurely extinguished itself on behalf of its pair of new occupants. Which is fortunate, since neither of us remembered the fire extinguishers under the kitchen sink, cabineted away from prying eyes until far too late for them to have done us any good. Our favorite perch of second story deck still holds our weight when we jump onnit, and gets a new coating of upholstered cushions, the aforementioned red spray cans taking sentry post at each corner. I use a jet-nozzled water hose to spray off or away any unpleasant remnants underneath. Taking stock of rations we find several weeks worth of gluttony still shelved, with far more wine than either of our stomachs will forgive us for. There are no other structures in view, at least nothing that could still be recognized assa structure, but we decide that an exploratory mission a bit farther down wouldn't hurt, spoiled as we are from all the junk food consumed previously. A search of the premises turns up no maps or information regarding our Fort's geographic relationship to anything else. There are no firearms either. Colors are still skewed unwholesomely. It is voted that any expedition for more supplies be held off until, well, something changes. The propane canister attached to the cookstove is full. Cans of ham and pork product, sliced potatoes, name brand government cheese. Add heat. Stir. Pass out from exasperated exhaustion. Maybe getta chance to repeat.
Tapioca morning. Beigeish-grey with lumps of sky pus. Just like mom usedta make, including streaks of burnt char floating here and there and everywhere. Colors have not returned to - previous? Browns are lighter tans. Blues are non-existent. Reds are darker, as are the lightest hues. Yellows are peppered mustard. Greens are in the army now. It is observed the wind direction has been generally the same as far back as we recall starting this trip. Which keeps a fairly consistent speed forra weather pattern. When my father died I found a notebook embossed with a gold US Air Force Chaplaincy seal dated 1974 that he had partially filled with the weekly rainfall amounts on our half acre property for fourteen years. He would watch the Weather Channel non-stop. And that was some of the more interesting data tables meticulously recorded. Weekly expenditures on groceries, including exciting annotations, such as the BX discontinuing their brand of generic grade " A " cigarettes. Monthly lottery totals - spent, won, and lost. If I were writing all of this down assan account of my life during what most surely is the final chapters, this would be the most horrific part. As I had such a meteorological inspiration at home, the specific scientific study of weather was not one of my favorites. My brain stubbornly insists nevertheless that a constant, unchanging wind pattern is not only wholly unnatural but surely cataclysmic. Of course it is. And not even top five on my probable events to be concerned about list.
Laura uses a plastic folding stepladder to climb onto the roof, easily attaining the peak. After about a minute she yells that she can see two more similarly constructed roofs further up the riverbank, hiding silent and ominous amidst the pines. The one closest looks like it took a direct hit fromma meteor, maybe recently. I don't ask why she thinks that and she doesn't explain. Also reported is the absence of anything else. Sliding down the shingles directly to the deck she takes the gutter with her to the floor. Triumphantly. I applaud.
The scaborus cloudcover begins to darken above us as we are emptying our backpacks in preparation for what we assume will be a shortish excursion - a scavenger hunt in search of girl scout cookies and anything inebriating besides wine. Thunder churns in the distance, a reversed .wav sample with the release parameter cut off. Windspeed dies to almost completely still - the eye offa scowling hurricane. Within a minute precipitation pelts from above. It hits suddenly, a moving vertical wall of high velocity liquid. We were under the parasol already, but instinctively we curl farther away from the edges. Not wanting to touch it immediately, we watch silently as the muted twists of hues and tints that had comprised everything in our views gets actually washed away, a color by number demonstration from end to beginning. The world matches the convex glass screen images my 8-bit Nintendo projected me on the black and white Zenith screen in my tiny walk-in closet sized bedroom growing up, contrast knob past middle detent. What were formerly straight deck plank edges become pebbled mud. I can't decide iffits an actual effect of the downpour or the tears in my eyes and very soon I stop trying. Laura curls up tighter inna ball and leans against me. I put my arms around her and my head behind hers. With our eyes closed it sounds just like ordinary rain. More funnel shaped thunderclaps. I try to think of nothing and fail. The memory of my first girlfriend's best friend splashing in the rain as we made out in her parent's van parked inna Southwest Texas University parking lot. I can't remember her name, the friend, but she was narcoleptic. She actually couldn't order soup atta restaurant and told us there wassan official phobia about drowning inna bowl of soup. I can't remember that word either.
The bleaching downpour ends as abruptly as the onset. An extremely unpleasant brightness is glowing through my closed lids. I pull the shower curtain over us and combined with her bedding we have the classic pillow fort. It helps, but I still refuse to open my eyes. Actually being inna world before the colorist hits the comic book is nothing like the animated Saturday morning drama/commercials would have had us believe. We lay huddled under the coverings with our faces buried in our pillows. Hours pass. I mimic Ed Sullivan and say, " and now, the Beatles.. " answered with a " Huh? " and an audible grain of relief. I explain the reference. She makes up improv cowboy shows with heap big success. I relate as many Twilight Zone and Outer Limits and Alfred Hitchcock plots as I can remember, which is quite allot. Fortunately the stash of wine is at hand. When stranded mysteriously inna horrifying alternate dimension remember to bring a storyteller other than Teddy Ruxpin. Makes the hours melt away. Ah, like the colors. I don't remember falling asleep or what episode I was on. When I next become conscious my head is angry and my mouth is dry and I am still not willing to open my eyes or crawl from underneath the damp bedclothes.
I dreamt of creatures the size of hippopotamuses that resemble gnashing coarse haired earwigs, themselves infested with hamster sized translucent lice. They burrow mineshafts and clack when they move, leaving lanes of upheaval. They are rupturing asphalt through and around a highway overpass, concrete powdering. No traffic is visible. Was the sky always grey? Gas masks in children's sizes adorning the plastic visages of mannequins. A great crowd in attendance atta megachurch, screens gigantic. An even more crowded parking lot. The empty parking lot at the amusement park by the time our sweeper trucks would arrive: overflowing barrels and bags and cans and bottles as far as the horizon, and over. A hive mind disturbed by petroleum. And then quiet. Periwinkle and soft. The smiling nude figure of Patricia Ann, my fiancé, the rightful owner of the silver cigarette case. No sound. She smiles and moves slowly, close-up of her face, her hazel eyes and layered colors of auburns and brunettes. This image lasts just as long as the previous combined. And then-
Dampness. Soaked linens in contact with my waterlogged skin. Sweat cascading, though the ambient temperature is cool. Sweeping, scratching above the rush of the river. The fore quarter offa yacht has upended nose to sky along our side of the riverbank. Cords and cables suspend sunken hangers-on trailing downstream. Bright colors are visible in the torn sunlight below decks. A blackened smear is still traceable marking the bear's escape to trout Valhalla. Despite the obvious forces that brought a chunk of watercraft still present, I gettan urge to investigate the bright colors, perhaps merely because they are bright colors. Laura is still asleep and doesn't move when I shamble out onto the deck. Camel from the silver clamshell engraved case. Cthulhu Zippo clicks and sparks. I grab a tree trimming pole with rusting serrated half-circle at the end and pick my way goat-like towards my destination, the wreck of the Robin Leech IV.
Upon reaching the remains of the craft it is far more noticeable how much its moving with the current. I have no intention of getting in the water and see that most of the primary tinctures that lured me here are various life preservers. With exception of a latched plastic box, which looks like a first aid kit. Laying belly down on the honeycombed limestone it takes no effort at all to snag it and draw it towards my hands. The mess of fiberglass and foam shifts to the side away from me shortly thereafter. Snapping it open I realize it is not a first aid kit, but an expensive lunchkit, bearing logos I don't recognize. Inside are half a dozen chocolate bars and the greening contents of what must have been sandwiches. Good enough. As I'm reaching the Fort the wreckage gives completely way and continues its journey. I decide to give Laura a choice: maybe these arrived by sea, maybe by petrodactyl. My first instinct is to show Kallisti. Existing on sugars is the realm of the child. Eating two on the stairs, I wait until I sense movement above me to continue ascending.
At what point is conversation an adversary?
A bright orange, open-roofed, rollbarred pickup truck laying on its side is the first thing visible as we crest the hill, having hacked our way up a pebbled drainage culvert to our neighboring meteor strike. The home is/was similar to the one we have claimed, colors and building materials matching. Floorplan a bent mirror of Mumbleblarrg. The damage to the roof has caused the entire structure to cave in on itself, like a punch in the center offa risen yeast doughball. Its not creaking or making any undue complaints, just looking defeated. A smear of linens and cutlery sprays out in front of the entranceway, an ornate wood and glass windowed doubledoor. Closed, but not locked, we find. Swinging inward without the customary horror movie sound effects, the scene laid before our eyes is silent and bewildering. A giant, probably taloned hand has used a massive charcoal to sketch in the sickeningly elongated outlines of four humanoid figures from underneath the overturned and burnt sectional sofa across the floor and facing wall. Pompeii-like in spectacle, an upraised arm with fingers splayed is discernable easily near the vaulted ceiling. Piles of black soot mimic rolling anthills across the long-piled carpet. A few bushy tails weave away behind endtables. Not seeing any remaining access tooan upstairs, we both hug the outer walls inna circuitous route to the kitchen. Neither of us register a closed pantry door as luck. Maybe fortuitous. Wordlessly backpacks are stretched to capacity. Finding positive foothold on the debris strewn floors proves more treacherous on the way out. Slamming the entranceway doors behind us explodes loud exhalations from our lungs. Whatever was in is now out. True artists we are.
The way back is always shorter than the route there, and today is no exception. Unloading the bounty soberly I set down a two liter of generic dark soda and without thinking immediately pick it back up. A genuine smile for the briefest of moments before searching fingers find the release mechanism. And the clever stash safe almost unscrews itself. Dry titters from both of us. About half an ounce of some sticky centerfold worthy marijuana. Unexpected but more common a relic than anything else. Some things are the same on both sides of the interdimensional abyss line. We consider waiting 'til after our shift, lest our bosses knock us off as we are applying fire.
Bellies stuffed with very little nutrients and way too many calories hours later, Laura showers while yelling obnoxiously the lyrics to something that must have been in heavy rotation midway on the radio dial. Despite being nearly distended, emptiness caverns my interior while clawed hands squeeze the air from my lungs.
Solely to amuse myself I spraypaint " The Way Out Is Through " in red block letters across the roof shingles facing the waterway. I consider adding the signature windows as eyes of the classic Amityville house before realizing I don't draw well enough to pull it off. Instead, an arrow groundward labelled DOWN.
Upon surveying my red painted handiwork, Laura adds THIS SIDE to the DOWN arrow. It seems more positive and helpful that way, she says. I gotta good start with the roof, may as well keep the good vibes on parade. I shrug and nod, passing her the bong it took all of ten minutes to build and digging my free hand into a disturbingly loud bag of cheese powdered popcorn, not one formerly purchased with a trademark onnit, but one made from popping kernels over the propane stove and dumping them into a large paper bag, then dousing with packets of the powdered cheese paste of poverty from macaroni and cheese dinner boxes, extra salt. The previous food purchasers had apparently been watching their sodium intake. I wonder out loud how much of that gunpowdery substance on the carpet was sodium. And iffit would have been worse had there been less or more. Usually this much cynicism would draw a remark from my current companion, but not now. A burst of smoke-filled exhalation and and now there are two hands digging in the popcorn. The sky and the river have been slowly becoming the color of Fanta Orange for the past few hours. We are both filling our stomachs with as much dry, filling items as we can shove in. Saltine crackers with peanut butter (low sodium, low fat). Half a case of red dry from California up on deck. Ready for horror and nausea when you are, world.
The expected wave hits with the same directional wind picking up to twice average speed. My stomach registers the intrusion but defies, asking for more California red. A shockwave sends both of us to our knees, cushioned from the hard wood of the deck. Instantly I hear Patty's voice discussing our favored sexual acts and reasons why over the telephonic airwaves from Michigan. The jazz playing on the radio gets louder, impossibly louder. Herbie Hancock, I recall. Stan Getz begins with impromptu vocals courtesy of my lover-to-be as the brightening orange river rises centrally over thirty feet. No discernable reason is visible underneath. Chunks of debris are ramped up and flung a distance before reuniting with the waterway. I remember my mother complaining about the name of the local river when we lived in South Carolina, the Pee Dee. Her name was Dolores; schizophrenics always relating their world through their own selfishness. Patricia asks me what my favorite sexual position is on three. One, two, ...and we agree. Something massive and crocodile like swishes its scaled tail upstream, smashing a former boat dock further and letting loose a low-pitched growl. Jaws snap. We cheer from our perch above the Firmament. Lunch happens, whether its fishy or salty popcorn.
My available balance is seventeen cents I tell the soda-colored sky as I'm knocked over again on my way to our lean-to shelter. Laura busts out laughing, remembering that I was still waiting on my income tax refund. Finding purchase on my mat I deliriously sing a NOFX song while quaffing more wine. " Malt liquor tastes much better on the street! " They had inflatable sheep sex toys in-store for that album promotion. Laying on my back I notice the sky bubbling carbonatedly around the edges of my vision. Where are Fantanas when you need them? We cheer and salute our surroundings with our bottles as another wave tests our stomachs.
Laura is shaking me. I am typically reticent to rouse. She persists, adding, " WAKE UP! " inna less than calm manner. Eyes are opened as she yanks my body up by my shirt. I think, " Why? Something is obviously going to kill us really, really fucking soon and I was asleep. Do you know what its like dying in your sleep? Pretty awesome, I hear. Like preferred. Why-." And then I notice too much orange. Which, by the way, is somehow not even close to disturbing as no colors but black and grey. Just before I drank myself into a coma I remembered thinking that the sky was more creamsicle than Fanta. Mmmm. Ice cream. Snore. And it still is, though much dimmer. In fact, it should be the dead of night. No stars visible. Heavy, rapidly moving cloudcover, sherbet orange. Looking forward parallel to the ground thick forest of pine trees is still visible, the house we're crashing at. But everything about four feet from the bottom of the deck is covered in Fanta. " Its not a fog. Watch. " She throws a small bag of trash, which we have been keeping in the spirit of not attracting so much attention, over the railing, as far up and out as she can. I watch its arc and see it splash. A few hundred feet and far too high for it to be in the river. I hear the sound offit hitting the rocky shore a second or so after seeing it ripple liquid-like through the orange. " It looks like liquid. Reacts like liquid. I stirred it with that oar. I watched it rise from the river. Like, from the river. It poured out of the river half an hour ago. No sounds, but from the river, like a dam had burst. I stirred it, but it didn't have any resistance. It just looks like its there. We can still hear the river and where it is. And whatever the fuck is going on with those moving stars. Itsa good thing I heard you making noises for years or I would have shot myself in the head the first time I heard that shit. And. And. An ..." Laura shakes her gaze falls downward. " Well, at least someone was listening. " I offer. We sit. She offers all her thoughts of her four children, her grandchildren. I discourse on my daughter and fiancé. The orange silently stays attits level below deck, our eyes never straying while we speak.
[ encouraged with a crowbar, she
head lifted by his hair, raining blood seconds after being severed, he saw the crowd's children eating snacks a full ten seconds
they all deserved the typhoid, Mary
none of the sisters even human
monastery wouldn't let them in
they froze to death attits gates
the flesh devoured by parasites until they burst forth from inside, spilling onto the tiled floor
she only looks you in the eye if she's lying
children of the village ingested
teeth falling out, blood in urine, cough
if not now, when?
fire consuming
go on little girl, ring the bell ]
This continues long into what our clocks tell us is the afternoon. No change in anything exterior. Eventually we mutually agree that there isn't a whole lot we can do if the orange rises and engulfs us, except maybe climb on the roof. Climbing onto our mats after making sure the plastic stepladder is in an emergency position we fall into a silence. I'm still drinking, but we were both slurring our speech from the start. Physical exhaustion does not stave off the watchful eyes, and we both wind up staring all around us. The river's chunky rush, that scratching noise, yipping and barking of foxes at one point. The atonality of the new stars fades with what should be daybreak. We muse aloud as to the fate of our all-star female glee club gladiator circuit. I stand and proclaim loudly my preference for the third, angrier sounding ones before falling nearly on my face. Laura yells that I'm just saying that because I was born with the reds.
A footnote: B.B. King is noted as saying that everybody has the blues. I happen to disagree with the King. I was born with the fucking reds. My fiancé, who, not coincidentally, is the mother of my child's oldest sister, hassa touch of the psychic flair. Her aunt told us that I am a frightening, bewildering thing to behold on the astral plane. An ever-changing, red cloud of faces and forms with three long penises, frontally mounted prehensile scorpion-like projections. This is the story of the same woman who grabbed my junk after I danced with her one holiday at the grandmother's.
Perhaps it is because I am a Discordian in faith. And/or because my mother wassa paranoid schizophrenic and I grew up usually alone with her, the behavior patterns well observed. Or maybe I'm just radd. She also said that sometimes she would observe me astrally and I would disappear. Which apparently isn't supposed to happen. Like, according to her the astral plane is where one goes to be invisible, no one ever disappears frommit. Always happy to be disconcerting, ma'am. Legend hassit that Prissy, my ex of ten years and the third of four girls nextdoor, drew a picture of me in that form assa little girl, no one quite expecting to find that those three projections were penises. To be fair, I don't think I would have assumed that either. Patricia, my betrothed one, told me that while herself inna sort of trance state after nearly fourteen hours of continuous conversation. I have been exploring various trance and brainwave states all my life, even inadvertently assa child. Sometimes things are amazingly perfect together. And sometimes things wind up in some kind of fucked up alternate dimension nextdoor more than likely doomed in some sort of uncertain but probable way. Such as life, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

By that I mean they’re plentiful, yet still in “short” supply?

Short penises

Struggling with shame and disgust from being trans

A Recap of AskHistorians 2023-04-26 to 2024-05-02

Water into Wet Clay - Chapter 1