Hey Kevin, this may not be what you were looking for, but it’s my story to tell.
I am working midnights in the O.R. of a busy trauma center. Part of trauma is some people don’t make it, but their organs can help others.
I come on shift and am told that I will be doing what is known as a “Harvest”, that is, the procurement of viable organs from a patient that has met the criteria for not coming back to us. This is not my favorite procedure by any stretch.
The place I trained was Catholic and Kidney centered. We did take viable kidneys. Once everyone was gowned and gloved, patient draped and ready to drop the knife, the lights would be lowered and the surgeon would address the patient by name, thanking him and telling him he was saving the lives of 2 other people with his generosity. We then observed a full minute of silence and the lights went up and the case was done.
It’s my first case like this in the new place. I go check out the room for readiness and get report from the nurse I’ll be receiving the patient from. Now I’m waiting on the “donor” team which in those days, were flying in from Stanford.
I hear voices and laughter in the male locker room and I knock on the door. Several booming male voices call out “come on in”. I open the door to numerous male bodies in varying states of dress who are all smiling and obviously pumped up with adrenalin; they are going to participate in procuring the gift of life. So I quietly said “I’ll see you all in the room” blushing as I quickly closed the door to hoots of laughter and men saying “come on, we don’t look that bad nurse”.
Besides seeing a lot of hot and not so hot male bodies that night, I learned something valuable. To celebrate life and to respect, but not be saddened for the death of the patient; for in his dying, he was giving life. That those people who were afraid and suffering now would be able to continue their lives.
When I was in grade school (1–6) and middle school (7–8), we did not have showers in the school. The middle school at least had a gym. There was a YMCA around the corner from a school. A few times a year, we would go to the YMCA to swim. This was after the days of naked men’s swimming. We wore suits. But the rule was that you HAD to shower before going back to school. I was a scrawny little uncoordinated geek. And I didn’t realize until later that my penis started growing earlier in puberty than some others. I am on the larger size of average as an adult in penis size. I also grew up in a predominantly Irish Catholic neighborhood. There was not a lot of diversity. I had been sick at birth and given the Last Rights of the Catholic Church. They didn’t think that I would live. As a result, I was never circumcised. Everyone else was. The first time we went to the YMCA showers, I could not figure out how all the boys kept their foreskins retracted all the time. Then I realized that I was different and deformed. I was maybe 5ft 2in tall and this big kid saw me changing clothes and saw my dick. He was maybe 6ft tall. He got another friend of similar size and they were teasing me. They picked me up and each took an arm and a leg and carried me around the locker room showing my “big deformed dick” to the other guys. I was mortified. The coach just laughed along with the kids. This sent me into a period of intense shyness and sheer terror when I got to high school and we had the mandatory showers in the open room. There were no stalls and just multiple shower heads in one giant stall. I have a large glans and I figured out how to retract the skin and keep it back. I am also gay and will admit to being turned on by the other guys so that gave me enough rigidity to hold the skin back without having a full erection. The HS gym teacher was lazy sometimes and he would just throw out some balls and tell us to play dodge ball. It’s a sadistic game that teaches people to bully. There was this one heavy kid named Billy and guys would target him first. I was always targeted second. I could not hide. My own team would set me up to get pummeled. One day I heard guys talking about how they always took out “the two biggest dicks in the class”. Now “dick” can be a derogatory term for jerk. Then I saw Billy in the showers and I finally understood. His dick was enormous. I think that open locker room showers are a good idea to help kids get comfortable with their bodies. But it is the responsibility of that gym coach to make sure that nobody is bullied. Unfortunately many coaches are bully’s themselves and scrawny geeky losers don’t have a chance.