@106: Ooops! Make that Wednesday, April 15, 2020. April 18th was Saturday. I'm losing track of weekdays during Stay Home / Stay Healthy. And my Love Beetle and I haven't gone any further than the local stores. no beaches or parks open. Idiot MAGA protesters angrily insisting that our excellent governor, Jay Inslee resign because of the closures, yelling to reopen Washington State. It is reassuring to have a state governor who cares about the people he represents, and is taking big strides to ensure good health and public safety. We certainly don't have a U.S. president doing that. It's truly up to the state legislatures.

Everyone stay healthy and safe.

@92 Harriet, yes, you are right, clits and penises come from the same embryonic tissue, erectile tissue. And yes I meant anatomical homologue as in having a common ancestry or point of evolution, thanks. I'm not sure prostate massage is similar to clit massage, prostates don't get swollen unless something is going very wrong, not if something is going very right.. I like gland massage too, but I think it's kind of impossible to avoid my swelling bits while going for the glands, and my swelling bits seem much more connected to my orgasms.. As far as wondering whether your stuff was feminine.. since ovaries and testicles are anatomical homologues, I wouldn't think that your testicles were feminine unless they were unusually retracted or pulled more into your body like a woman's ovaries. In this sense, your small penis is sort of feminine, but you still only have one bulb and like the outer parts of your penis more than the inner parts, while women tend to like the inner swelling bits a lot if not more, so you still seem to be sexually responsive like a penis-haver. Who likes prostate play, not bulb play, right? And even if you like bulb play like mostly women do, or if I liked sticking to the head and shaft like mostly men do, doesn't make our chromosomal reality any different, it just makes it more difficult to understand us if we're not clear about our differences to our lovers. I'm not actually sure whether I like the inside or outside bits of my clit more I think they are both great.

As far as your trans feelings, I'll refer to you any way you like, everyone has a different experience of their gender and labels they identify with, and I think it's interesting to listen to the differences. I don't think I've had a problem with being a woman but I've felt a lot of anger towards people who define women so as not to include me, but I try to calm down when exposed to ignorance now. I like female pronouns etc.

Thanks Donny, Curious, and Griz for spreading the good vibes.

ps Harriet.. Clits become penises by being exposed to testosterone, I believe. It's entirely possible that your clit wasn't exposed to as much androgens as usual, just enough to make a penis instead.. hopefully you at least got viable sperm in the deal. I'm not sure that hormone levels are the most valuable or distinctive parts of being gendered, let alone being human.

@107 griz
"Idiot MAGA protesters angrily insisting...yelling to reopen Washington State."

This situation is infuriating: our welfare depends upon the good judgement and interest in the public welfare of people with neither.

Secondary responsibility goes to the rightwing media for presenting to them only the alternative universe where this is not madness.

I'm all for their right to protest...safely. But these protestors should count themselves lucky that the extremely unsafe (and thus endangering to the lives of all of us) behavior in these protests has not already resulted in their incarceration, possibly then resulting in their death from COVID from that incarceration. I think their governors are being too patient in tolerating the reckless endangerment occuring in those protests; I do not and would not. If I have to choose between their illegal behavior resulting in my death, or them dying from incarceration, it's not a difficult choice. The rightwing has become a death cult, and the Constitution is not a suicide pact.

@109 Philophile: You're most welcome. I think it's important to try to keep spirits up, especially in these uncertain, stressful times. My deepest passions---primarily music, Volkswagens, cats, and the good people in my life are contributing greatly to my good health, safety, and sanity. Movies help, too. Good Morning, Vietnam and The Breakfast Club are my choices for tonight--followed by an early Tuesday morning breakfast.
@111 curious2: I agree. I feel it is truly madness for those who are so woefully ignorant that they will have to start dying themselves, and / or losing some of their own loved ones, friends, and family members---most likely from the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19, before any long-dimmed light bulbs ever illuminate under those hideous MAGA caps. That they willingly choose to endanger the well-being and safety of the rest us is beyond shameful.

We had a similar rally here today in New England, but the protestors stayed in their cars, did a lot of honking for about fifteen minutes, and caused traffic delays in the neighbourhood of the capitol building.

In one of the few competitions not interrupted by the virus, today Lc0 (Leela) clinched victory over Stockfish in the superfinal of the 17th Top Chess Engine Championship. After neither engine had more than a one-win lead early, Leela was two up at the halfway point. The lead stayed at two or three for most of the second half, with Stockfish winning the 93rd game to get within two, but then Leela won three in a row to clinch the match. Another triumph for neural networks.

@114 venomlash: I'd like to see your avatar of Hobbes and that of commenter Adverse Polarity--of Calvin running butt-naked--together. It's be a perfect cartoon match, like the pairing of @69 DonnyKlicious's avatar of Bill the Cat with fellow commenter, Morty's ice cream cone eating Opus the Penguin of Bloom County fame.
Comic strips just plain rock, and you just can't beat the classics. :)

Griz @106: Sunny days, top down on Beetle. It sounds perfect. Sigh.

@116 fubar: I am truly lucky to have him. How anyone or anything can put up with a nut like me, I don't know. But he smiles and gives the same response: 'You've put up with all my quirks after all these years.' Ours is truly a common law automotive marriage. My mother didn't want to have to admit later that she missed driving my little Love Bug after she and dad sold him to me. Even her 1984 VW Golf convertible just wasn't the same. My Beetle's response to Mom? ' You didn't want me. I'm with her now.' He's been with me the last 38 years, bless him, and in my life since I was 9 1/2 years old.
How is your Harley running? Didn't you say you have a motorcycle? I'm looking to check in with a local VW mechanic about the automatic choke, carburetor, and alignment soon. I've got to have him ready for spring and summer driving, even if our trips are little local jaunts.
Sending big hugs, positrons, and VW beeps to you and your Harley, fubar! :)

@104. Bi. Yes--very much so. Something like e.g. 'we both have desires for men--you go explore your desires and I'll go explore my desires' will NOT be, in your words, a 'welcome deal-sweetener'.

We know that OOO's gf 'deals with those desires'--that is, desires for men--through masturbation. Why? I made the presumption, as you correctly point out, that this was because she understood being in a lesbian relationship, or being romantically with a strongly-presenting or signalled lesbian/queer woman/dyke, to entail a political identity that foreclosed on having sex with guys. There are of course other reasons why she might not (ever) have chased up these heterosexual urges. One might be finding monogamous relationships the only psychologically possible context for sex. Another (I will wander a little closer to the cutting edge of youth) might be identifying as a demisexual. The remark about the grass being greener where you water it, though, suggests that she finds casual straight sex imaginable, but not preferable to sex in a nurturing relationship.

For one reason or another, the 'deal with those desires through masturbation' remark makes sense to the lw (either because of 'political lesbianism', or presumed monogamy, or a presumption that any sex is emotionally taxing and risks romantic disloyalty, or the perceived low quality of available local men as bedmates, e.g.). My sense, from the letter, is that they're yet not communicating completely clearly; and that OOO has not said to her partner, 'what would you be afraid of if, say, I limited my exploration with men to FWB fucking no more than once a month with a mutual friend/acquaintance?'. OOO's gf's line seems to be that it's self-evident things will go wrong, without her having yet to have spelled out her fears.

(Of course I called myself 'queer, predominantly genderqueer, but I guess queer in sexual terms, too' when it mostly elicited puzzlement from gay men. Many of them thought 'gender was for other people'--it had to do with mating rituals, or complex etiquettes around having sex, that we'd dispensed with; or that it had to do with the extreme stylisation of appearance or roles in a way that was mostly oppressive of women).

@110. philophile. I've never been able to count on intense sensations in my glans penis. It's been hit and miss for me, irrespective of how emotionally or sexually engaged I've been--and, actually, my feelings are predominantly of relief that I've had these sensations. I have the 'bulb' sensations to a lesser extent, in a place that doesn't seem to exist, or be capable of visualisation, when the sensations are absent. Lots of this could be just attributable to psychological reasons.

I also have almost no muscle mass and both gain weight (and can lose it) in quicker than usual time. Too much time has gone into my diagnosing my own navel and chasing my own tail, as it were, given that my sexual functioning is fine (in the sense of e.g. my not having vaginismus or a traumatic aversion to sex or to its idea).

I have a good relationship with the now adult child of an ex I helped parent when said child was a teen. (How far did I parent? I don't know; the child's father was an unreliable alcoholic. I thought 'a lot', and I'm saying a lot, though the child's mother, who had died, remained the mother; and grandparents (the mother's family) were frequently a refuge and backstop throughout this young person's life). I know I don't have viable sperm. Thank you for your support and affirmation of my gender identity in terms of my own specification.

Re: PMP - I was so excited to see this question addressed because it's something I've dealt with too. But for me at least its not about the penetration aspect, at least not primarily. It's about how straightforward and pleasurable I perceive penises be. I can tell when someone with a penis is aroused, the target of where to touch to elicit pleasure is large and doesn't tend to move around and responds so well to so many different things. The sensations created by stimulation seem to last longer at a more systemic level than anything available from female anatomy. I would so love to have set in possession of an actual penis now and then, the kind that can get hard and feel things.

M?? Harriet - Your original presumption seems unlikely, as political lesbianism peaked some time ago, and LW would likely have written something (consciously or otherwise) indicative of their belonging in different decades. I thought of a high level of either monogamy or homosociality.

One of the things in the Would Be Nice to Know category is whether GF was ever in LW's situation or similar to it. LW seems a little younger than her age, whatever that might be.

I shouldn't put it so much that Gender is for Other People as that Gender is a Threat, at least in the way it's being wielded. I'll spare the assembled company chapter and verse, but I did see it coming.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think there's a certain magic in watching venn discuss something with Harriet.

@119 Harriet. You sort of seem to respond like a woman with your urethral bulb instead of big vestibular bulbs. I just think it's funny it's called a urethral bulb instead of penile bulb. It's near your prostate and rectum behind the balls I think, maybe you can feel it erect. But maybe you need to calm down in order to get swollen, like a woman. It's funny, it can help to distract with imagination or nongenital sensations in order to relax and get swollen, distractions or weed can oddly help to get into the moment and feel more sexually responsive. But maybe that's me, it can be hard to relax around people. I swear that penis and clit-havers are a little different in how hormones that can dampen our arousal are released idk.

Women report sexual desire that is not so correlated to our arousal, maybe because our arousal isn't so noticeable. It's more effort for us to notice what turns us on by feeling it rather than seeing it, so some people don't bother to explore. I just hope that you haven't decided that you don't make sense and there's no point to exploring further. I don't think it's a waste of time to get to know your body better and experiment with what it likes, especially if the "typical male" advice doesn't work that's all the more reason to be curious and open minded.. However you feel you may have the most success. Thanks for tolerating my interest in your genitals.

I'm sorry you didn't have as much reproductive choice as most. Life sucks sometimes. You prove your character in how you survive anyway and help raise the next generation despite your loss, bravo.

I feel like I know nothing about genitals, every time I try to verify something I find out I was mistaken. I have felt a guy's swelling through the rectal wall, and that seems to be reported as the prostate. The female homologue is the g spot area along our urethra which swells too. Plus I am supposed to have a periurethral glans as well as the clit head I'm familiar with. It's supposed to be located at the tip of the urethra, which seems to make sense with my body's feelings, actually. Women have two bulbs and two heads. Gah.