the case of the missing penis
05-09-26

(Note: This post discusses bottom dysphoria and includes references to sex, etc. Reader discretion advised.)

I’ve suffered with a missing penis for my entire life.

It was not what lead me to realizing I was trans, nor did it factor into the precipitation of that original realization. I was thirteen and had more pressing matters at the time: my voice, my chest, my awful menstruation cycles,¹ et cetera. I was so dissociated from myself and my body that I was only concerned with that which was most visible—everything that wrongly identified who (and what) I was.

It felt like I was totally devoid of character, and at the same time chock full of artificial substance. I wasn’t nothing or nobody—I was something and someone. Just the wrong kind of something, and the wrong person.

As these immediate points of dissonance became more and more uncomfortable, I attempted to work against them with what small means I had available. Think choppy haircuts and ill-fitting boy clothes, cigarette smoke to rough up my vocal chords, and slashed wrists to take the edge off.

These efforts brought minimal relief and even more points of friction; none of them could penetrate my inherent “femaleness”, the source of all my problems. Once I finally started testosterone my face masculinzed, my voice deepened, and my silhouette broadened. A thousand small triumphs over biology pushed me toward the end goal that I had always dreamed of: becoming a man.

I’m now six years on testosterone.² I still encounter changes, but watching my arm hair slowly creep up my wrists and onto the back of my hands isn’t exciting as it used to be over a half a decade in. The changes I experience now are more cerebral and internal.

Now that my outer appearance matches my inner identity, I’ve got to integrate the two. This is a pretty huge undertaking for someone who disassociated all throughout their adolescence and young adulthood.

This integration involves reconciling the opposing axes of inside and outside, mental and physical, and most of all psychological and biological. The process hasn’t been easy, but I’ve finally got a working frame of reference for who I am and how I interact with the world, which was only made possible through Hormone Replacement Theory.

It’s a different situation behind closed doors and below the belt. My relationship with my genitalia is too nuanced to launch into here.³ Throughout my teens and early twenties—before HRT and after starting HRT—I oscillated between total disassociation and fulsome indulgence, each a maladaptive coping mechanism in their own right.

After exhausting these relational modes, I settled on neutral utilitarianism. My transition accomplished (if incomplete), and by then comfortably settled in a healthy marriage, I was no longer bracing myself against the headwinds of my undiscovered sexuality, nor the tailwinds of my adolescent confusion. I knew what I was and what I wasn’t, and conflated the two to the best of my ability.

HRT provided me a lot of personal growth.⁴ My secondary sex characteristics⁵ are utterly transformed. Even my natal genitalia changed on testosterone, wherein the clitoris grew into something equivalent to a pseudo-micropenis.⁶

But as my transition has otherwise stabilized (to call it “stagnant” or “stalled out” would be a misnomer), testosterone’s boundaries of influence have become starkly defined—no endocrine revolution can circumvent the primary sex in its entirety.

The bottom dysphoria I’ve kept neatly sequestered away my entire life has broken through its containment. Masturbation—which at one point consumed so much of my daily life that it probably qualified as an addiction—is nigh impossible now.⁷ Where I could previously barrel past any lingering discomfort, my dysphoria now forces itself into focus, oftentimes resulting in an anxiety attack at the edge of climax that leaves me nauseous and unable to continue—my sexual appetite dashed in spite of still-present arousal.

Sex is even worse. Everything is silicone and artificial. Penetration, which I used to engage with, is no longer enjoyable. Being an active partner requires me to detach and disassociate; my spouse refuses to abide by this (as any good partner should). I’m left feeling even more inadequate because I can’t participate like I used to.

These feelings continue to crystallize the closer I reach thirty. My sex drive has naturally reduced now that I’m slowly aging out of my twenties—physically and mentally. I’m not some kid anymore, pumping my body full of new androgens that turn me into a horndog. Neither am I lost in my own identity, indecisive and insecure.

I’m a grown man, a husband, and I know what I want and how to get it. I know who I’m not and who I want to be. The only problem is that I can’t.

There are several options for trans men to dress bottom dysphoria that don’t involve surgery.⁸ I’m only now beginning to explore them.

Packers come in a variety of sizes/shapes. A few months ago I bought my first one, a Mr. Limpy—probably the most common “starter” packer. The fit was awkward and made me look like I was pitching a tent everywhere, so I never wore it for long.

I’ll never forget how it felt, though—the heft and the bulge and the weight. It felt like something finally slotted into place, and a terrifying contentment flooded through me, warm and bright: confirmation that yes, I have been missing a penis this entire time.

Now that I’m aware of it, there’s no ignoring its excruciating lack. I might not be able to totally rectify its absence, but I’ll be trying all the workarounds available to me. New packers, new aids for sex, etc—maybe even high-quality prosthetics.

I’ll lift a bunch of my writing in this note and synthesize it with my findings to create a proper blog post down the line. For now I just needed to vent. If you’re reading this and you have a penis you enjoy, be thankful. If you don’t, know that you aren’t alone and I’m commiserating with you.

(Background credit: Leather Crotch by Robert Mapplethorpe, 1980.)