On a rather typical winter morning in Chicago, I awoke to a rather strange feeling beneath my sheets. Upon lifting said sheets, I discovered what had occurred during the night. Oh, fuck. I’d had a wet dream. In rather annoyed teenager fashion, I rolled out of my bed, changed into a clean pair of boxers and stripped the sheets from the mattress.
You’re probably thinking “So what? Every teenage guy goes through this.” I’m not like most teenage guys – and I’m certainly not a “teenager” anymore. I’m five months from turning twenty-three and I’ve been on Testosterone (commonly referred to as HRT – Hormone Replacement Therapy) via self-injection for three years.
When you begin self-injecting you’re warned of all the possible side effects both good and bad. Vocal chord lengthening which causes your voice to drop, clitoral growth, male pattern balding, mood swings, increased libido and appetite, weight gain, facial and body hair growth, increased risks for various cancers, high blood pressure and heart disease, just to name a few. What you aren’t warned about is the ability to have a wet dream.
Don’t get me wrong – being on Testosterone is great! It’s put me that much closer to being the man I’ve always known I am. It can just make for awkward life experiences that you never thought you would get to go through as a child. Here are a few examples from my own archive of awkward teenage boy moments.
I started Testosterone in the fall of 2009 during my freshman year at college where I was taking a Gay & Lesbian studies class. Each time the class met we would have a different topic and guest speaker. This day in particular we had a guest speaker who happened to be one of the Queer Lit professors. She brought in a piece to read about two lesbians that were into leather. I vaguely remember she was on a passage where one of the women was on her knees licking the boots of the other woman.
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wet+dream | Urban Dictionary]I could feel a stirring in my pants and knew I was getting my first real hard-on. I ended up putting my head down on the table in front of me and focused on trying to calm my breathing and just get through it. My guy friend Hayden had been sitting next to me and asked me about it after class. I brushed it off as no big deal, we laughed, and that was that.
About a month later I was dating this guy, Chase. That night it had been absolutely pouring rain but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from seeing him. I made the trip across the city to pick him up from his dorm and bring him back to my place. I’ll leave it to your imagination what happened that night.
The next morning my mother is up and getting ready for work. She comes into my room to ask me a question and finds her once-daughter-now-son in bed with a man.
That morning was never spoken of again, which I’m thankful for. The lesson learned there was not to bring guys home if I knew my mother would be home that night or the next morning. I’m sure that’s an experience my mother didn’t expect to ever deal with as she had yet to completely come around to my being her son now. Even still, I never bring guys home anymore. That’s just asking for more embarrassing moments.