newbie plugging observations

[AndyJ]

Okay, the 8mm bumpy plug arrived and it's in. I had to restart after a couple of days, working up to the 7mm one, then made the jump to 8mm when the 7mm slid out. The gauge spike helped open things up enough. 18 hours now, the 8mm seems to be staying for a while.

One of the 9mm plugs is here, two more coming. I will sand one down to 8.33mm and the other to 8.66mm. The other plugs all vary quite a lot in diameter, from correct to as much as .4mm undersize. If you're going to sand them down in French steps, it saves a lot of work if you sort them by size first.

The made-in-China plugs have all had a thick coating of grease and machining swarf inside. Common household cleaners wouldn't touch it, but carburetor cleaner did the trick.

Most of the eBay/Amazon plugs have a longish neck on the end, that lets them slide in and out a bit. They probably do that to accommodate different glans shapes; my stricture and meatus slit practically touch, so the plugs move around quite a bit as my underwear rubs on them. That seems to work toward loosening the stricture up, which is good, but walking very far can be uncomfortable, particularly when things get a bit loose. I've also wondered about the in/out motion working bacteria into the urethra, but the chastity guys with the cage-and-plug setups don't report any special problems with that, so maybe nothing to be too worried about.

The long neck lets the plug slide forward and seal when I urinate, but when I push it back in (or my underwear does) I get a dribble of urine around the neck, that was strapped within the fossa navicularis. As a side note, if you happen to be visiting someone with a septic tank, they probably use the kind of toilet paper that will turn into a handful of wood pulp if one drop of urine touches it. Argh.

If you have a drill press and a steady hand, drilling a .75mm or so cross hole through the forwardmost bump should let urine out of the fossa cavity instead of trapping it to dribble out later. So far the stretching has been so fast I haven't bothered, particularly since I seldom leave the house due to the Corona lockdown thing. I don't think it will be an issue with the Tetherspouts. But if the stretching slows down and I have to wear the 8.33 and 8.66 plugs very long, I'll probably drill them.

Someone makes a plug called a "socket plug" with a very short neck and a ball end that rides right up against the meatus, probably spreading it open a bit for most guys. The socket plugs are way more expensive, but they look like they would eliminate the leakage problem. And they have a very steep angle on the front side, which would help keep them from falling out. For an extended wear plug, they look like they would be worth the extra money.

The short "screw in" plugs also have fairly short necks; I thought "you must be kidding" when I first looked at one, but now I think the stricture ring might ride down inside the thread, letting you get a larger plug in than would ordinarily be possible. Sort of like mounting a tire over a rim. I ordered one to try.

Another .5mm and I can get the Tetherspout in. I've been making some accessories for it; I got some 8mm x 1mm wall stainless tubing from eBay; that will let me make a sleeve that will slide over the 6mm spout and be retained by the nut on the outside. I also found some 9mm x 1.5mm tubing, it's coming out of China. I could have used plastic, but I wanted the weight of steel; the Tetherspouts are tiny bits, and I've already gotten used to bulkier plugs, and wanted the weight. The sleeves will hopefully keep the stricture from closing back up; it still shrinks right down when I take a plug out, and I have to work back up to what I was before. Eventually that might stop, but if the sleeve holds it open at 8 or 9mm all the time, the spout should slide right out when I need it to. I'll probably have to remove it once or twice a week to clear any "sand" that doesn't make it through the tube; I make kidney stones more or less continuously, but they're usually very small. Occasionally I pass a larger one that's like yanking a rifle brush through my urethra; I expect I'll have to bend a paper clip or something to push it out of the way to urinate until I can get someplace where I can remove the spout and get the stone out.

I also got some 16mm stainless decorative balls; I hope to be able to drill and tap one to make a screw-on ball. And I got a pack of stainless coupler nuts; they're about an inch long. And some 6x1mm stainless thumb screw style nuts. Hey, I might as well be decorative... and a couple of spare 3.5mm hex keys. I'm going to solder or braze a loop on one so I can wear it on my key ring. I can probably borrow a wrench or pliers somewhere if I need them, but metric Allen wrenches aren't a common item where I am, and probably not if I'm out of town and seriously need one at 3 o'clock in the morning...

[AndyJ]

Hey bucket...

I had a piece of scrap plastic window glazing at hand while running the table saw yesterday; I ripped a couple of 20mm strips while I was at it. I thought I'd drill a row of 6mm holes, cut the strips up, then try shaping some odd-shaped retainers with the sander and Dremel. But I was able to just break the glazing into pieces with my fingers.

It's polycarbonate plastic, but not the same stuff commonly sold as "Lexan." That stuff, you need a hammer to do much damage to. If you decide to DIY a plastic retainer, do some sacrificial spares and try breaking one with your fingers before you put too much work into it. The good polycarbonate should bend, not break. I felt a phantom twinge thinking about trying to remove sharp pieces of broken plastic retainer from my dick...

[AndyJ]

~48 hours with the 8mm plug and I caught it before it fell into the toilet. I gauged my urethra and the spike slides in easily to 25Fr now. I cleaned the 8mm and put it back in until I can finish polishing the 8.33 later today; hopefully it won't fall down a pant leg in the meantime. I'm now expanded into the bottom rung of "normal"; up 2.5mm in four weeks. [happy dance]

Looks like this weekend's project is to make the 8mm tetherspout sleeves. And now that I have access to a lathe, I ordered a piece of 3/8" 303 stainless round rod. I have an idea for making a "heavy spout", maybe 50mm long, stepped down to 6mm like a regular tetherspout. The budget isn't going to stretch to a rotary or draw broach to cut a hex, but tetherspouts are cheap; I can turn the rim off one, press it into the heavy piece, and pin it so it can't work loose. That would provide the hex and the rounded-off 6x1.0mm threads on the end. (note to self: screw a nut on the end before pressing, so the threads don't get deformed)

So it would go like this: slide the 8.5mm heavy spout in, then the retainer - note the heavy spout can't turn, being long and pushed well down the urethra - then slide the 8mm sleeve on and screw on whatever decoration looks good.

I got some 6x10mm and 6x20mm stainless washers in a couple of days ago, for adjusting the "reach" of the spouts if I need to.

[AndyJ]

That was fast... less than a day after ordering a 6 foot piece of 303 stainless rod, it was sitting on my front porch. The box was a foot square and six and a half feet long.

Does Guinness World Records have a category for "largest penis plug box"?

Unfortunately it's going to be several weeks at least before I can get some lathe time for the heavy plug project...

8mm/24Fr might have been the last easy stretch. The 8.34/25Fr plug has been in more than 24 hours and is still tight and uncomfortable, even though the 24Fr would fall out. The main discomfort seems to be that it gets pushed up against the stricture and then puts pressure on it. I found earlier that the stricture really doesn't like that. I can push it back in - it doesn't want to move easily - and it's no problem.

It doesn't want to move because A) it's very tight, B) I was too lazy to walk to the other room and get the Vaseline and used Surgilube instead when inserting it, and C) the sanded surface finish is smooth, but not polished, and I think the urethra is getting a grip on it. The gauge spike has a similar surface finish and it's "sticky" no matter what kind of lube I use; the limit of insertion seems to be as much friction as it is the stricture diameter. I don't have polishing equipment, and, hey, it'll come out on its own eventually. (though, yes, every now and then I wonder...)

Next time I use the gauge I have an insulin syringe (no needle) full of lubricant to shoot down the urethra, which ought to help the gauge move freely. I think almost all of the lube is being wiped off by the stricture as it goes in. I expected to have trouble loading the syringe, but I just squoze out a glob of lube, stuck the syringe in, pulled the plunger back, and it snorfed the lube in with no trouble.

[mac67]

Make sure when doing any finishing work on the stainless that you use a new sanding disk etc. If you one contaminated with steel, The stainless will rust. Personally, I would have gotten 316 ss. More expensive though.

[AndyJ]

316 has slightly better corrosion resistance, 303 has a better machineability rating. Since the tetherspout bits are 416(?) I don't think it will matter much. Good point about the particles getting embedded in the abrasives, though.

[AndyJ]

The 8.4 plug fell out when I turned over in bed last night. I gauged it at 26Fr; it wasn't painful at the stricture, it just didn't want to go down any further, even shooting lube down the urethra with a syringe. (which helped a *lot*; I strongly recommend it!) I think I may have a tight spot further down; now that I can get a larger sound in I need to probe it.

Anyway, I lubed the 9mm plug up and it slid right in. I don't have the sleeve made for the tetherspout yet, so when the 9mm slips out I'll give it a day or two and see how hard it is to get back in; I don't want to wind up with the spout bits stuck inside if the stricture gets stubborn about opening up. I mean, I know what went in must (eventually) come out, but I obsess over details like that.

I found some dental floss in the bathroom cabinet; was able to thread some through the tiny holes on a threaded spout. Getting close...

[AndyJ]

Something better than soldering a loop on a hex key - some of the cheap folding hex key sets include 3.5mm. All you have to do is remove the key and thread it onto your keyring. There's no arm, so you'd have to use the ring to twist it, but it's just a straight piece of metal with a loop on the end that shouldn't be interesting to anyone who sees it. You could also cut it down to no longer than it needs to be to go through whatever hardware you screw to the end of the spout.

Naturally, I saw this after I bought a couple of spare hex keys...

[AndyJ]

I took a close look at the screw plug set. Running my finger around the 9mm I found a burr that I couldn't see by eye. A few swipes with some fine sandpaper took care of it. Given how it was polished, I suspect the burr was damage from handling.

The burr probably wasn't tall enough to draw blood, but it would have gotten awfully raw where it would rub...

The 9mm bumpy plug slid out around noon. Three weeks plugged... after seven hours, it still feels strange without anything in there. I'll gauge the stricture later tonight and in the morning to see how much it shrinks.

[djcrash1981]

Wow it is amazing what you are doing. Could you post some pictures of all the plugs and rods that you're using and masking do others can learn and try to replicate from your experience?

Regards.

[AndyJ]

Sure! Give me a bit to shuffle the round tuits.

[AndyJ]

In our last thrilling installment, the 9mm plug had slid out on its own. That's as far as I intend to stretch. Theoretically I could then insert the tetherspout bits, but I haven't made the sleeve yet - I have some 6mm ID, 8mm OD tubing I need to cut and deburr, to slide over the "spout" part and secure with a nut. The sleeve would be to keep the stricture from shrinking back down and making it hard to get the spout bits out.

I was "experiencing some discomfort" when urinating; I thought I was developing a urinary tract infection. Even being careful to sterilize everything, staph is everywhere... so I left my urethra empty for a while. After a day the soreness in urinating went away. The surface finish on the 8.4mm plug that I sanded down from a 9mm wasn't all that great, so I figure it might have rubbed things raw a bit. I had also masturbated with either the 8 or 8.4, I can't remember which - I figured it might have made the urethra sore even though I was being careful. Whatever, the pain went away. I gave it a second day, more or less out of laziness, then tried the gauge spike again.

Uh-oh. Couldn't even get it started. I had to go back to the 5mm sound, 6mm plug, 6.8 silicone sound, and then the gauge would slide in to 23Fr, which is a loose 7mm. Once I got the 5mm sound in, the stricture expanded easily with larger sounds up to 23Fr, then stopped. No real pain, but even fairly heavy pressure on the gauge wouldn't open it up to 24Fr. So I popped the 7mm in for now. The original 7 - 8 - 8.4 - 9 steps each took about a day. I'll see how long it takes this time. I need to do some polishing on the 8.4 before using it again, though.

I'm really glad I didn't get the wild-ass and assemble the tetherspout bits in there when I was at 9mm. Theoretically I could push the spout part deeper into the urethra and sound back up, pushing the retainer plate to the side... But it would be a real hassle. This should all be a complete non-issue for most guys; I have a bad stricture problem, which is the reason I started sounding and plugging.

[AndyJ]

I have found that lubrication of the sound or plug is very important. Even highly polished steel plugs want to drag and tug at the meatal tissue when stretching, and the discomfort from that can easily exceed that from the stretch.

I started off using Surgilube, which is basically sterile K-Y. It might work for some purposes, but steel-on-flesh isn't one of them. I then tried Astro-Glide silicone lube, which is touted as the be-all, end-all "personal lubricant." Frankly, it didn't do much better. The main problem is that it doesn't want to "wet" silicone or steel. Makes your fingers nice and slippery when you're trying to handle things, sort of the opposite of Super Glue. Note that Astro-Glide is marketing their new water-base lube heavily, so if you want silicone make sure that's what it says on the label. Some reviewers have claimed the silicone lubes stain underwear and sheets. I didn't find that to be true, probably because all my stuff is plain old cotton instead of silk or whatever.

I wound up using plain unscented Vaseline as an insertion lube. Most Vaseline comes in jars, but they do package it in flip-top tubes, which are a lot more convenient, at least for me. Vaseline isn't a perfect lube, but it's slipperier than the others, way cheaper, and easy to clean up. If you are starting from scratch and don't have any fancy sex lube on hand, save the $10-$15 and just buy a $1.50 tube of Vaseline from the dollar store.

You have "water base" (K-Y), "silicone", and "oil base" lubes. At one time there were many oil based "personal lubricants", but they seem to have been almost completely replaced by water-base products. Vaseline is technically an oil base lube, but it's really old-school. The only oil based lubes I found other than Vaseline had names that hinted at targeted marketing; "Elbow Grease", "Boy Butter", etc.

I ordered a jar of "Elbow Grease." It's a thin white cream, and it is very slippery. Better than Vaseline. A thin coat on the gauge sound and it slid in and out easily without the usual tugging. But it's slick and it gets *everywhere*. If you've ever used antiseize on motorcycle spark plugs or screws, it's like that. A pencil-eraser-diameter dot of antiseize will eventually leave silver marks on everything within reach. Elbow Grease is like that. The stuff works, but using it is going to require hazmat style containment protocols to keep it from sliming half the house.

[AndyJ]

Okay, round tuits found... for some reason the picture came out fuzzy; I need to play with my camera settings again.

These are the ones I've actually used; some others were too big, too small, duplicates, or still haven't arrived yet. Except for the screw plugs, which I haven't had a chance to try yet.

The leftmost is the 6mm pee-through plug. It was rubbing against the uretha inside and bothered me, so I cut it off. The orange cap goes from 5 to 6mm, I used it once, then went to the longer cap, which goes from 5.7-ish to 6.5mm. The safety pin was to make sure it wouldn't slide past the stricture where it would be hard to recover.

The two ball-end plugs were both 7mm. I reshaped them on the sander to 6.4 and 6.7mm, going more or less by French sizes. Each step was pretty big at the time! Then a 7mm bumpy plug, and the 7.75mm aluminum plug I made on the lathe. Then an 8mm, an 8.4 ground down from 9mm, and a spare 9mm. I was able to make the step from 8.4 to 9 without grinding it to 8.7. It seems like the stretch gets easier as I go...

The plug with the ring was twice that long, and sharpish on the end. I cut it off. It's not much use, it jumps from 6mm to 9mm.

The short silicone sound is where I started; it's supposed to be 6mm, it's actually 5.7mm. I wound up cutting it off and reshaping the end on the sander. It was easier to work with without a foot of rubber flopping around.

The other two sounds are 7mm (actually 6. and 8mm (actually 7.7). I shaped more of a point on the end of each, and reduced the diameter of the first two bumps to make it easier to get in. I think there's some kind of misalignment between the meatal slit and the stricture inside; sometimes it feels like I'm trying to push the sound around the side of the stricture instead of through it. It can be pretty frustrating, even when it's dilated because I just pulled a sound or plug out.

The tapered spike is the Tether Products French gauge; the steps are 1Fr increments from 20Fr to 30-something. My un-stretched size is something like 16 or 17Fr, so I have to stretch up before I can get the gauge in at all. It's a pretty nifty tool after that, both for gauging and stretching.

I bought a whole set of 10(?) silicone sounds, intending to use them as gauges. Most of them are way too small or way too big. The ball end sounds were really neat; I liked the feel of the ball slapping against my thigh, but what slides in will eventually slide out, sooner more than later due to the weight. I ordered some 16mm stainless balls and a 6x1mm tap so I can make a ball end for one of the threaded tetherspouts. It didn't occur to me until later I could have just cut the stem off one of the ball end plugs, and tapped it.

[Dude19]

I welcome you to the club. We have all been at a point where we thought we would be stuck forever. Some of us just kept working slowly at it others taking a different way like me. For those who take it slowly I have read that stretching for long periods of time every other day sometimes works the best compared to everyday. But everyone is different. The only big downside to stretching is you have to keep doing it as much as possible. As soon as you let it rest for too long it will start to go back to its original size. The hardest part is stretching to opening up. If you are cut it will be smaller than someone who is intact. Also if tends to be much less elastic and not take to stretching as easily. The urethra it self is very elastic and will stretch very easily. So if you are having problems stretching it out that is the part that you should focus on the most. Using shorter plugs that have a egg shaped end that has a narrowed shafted works really well if you can get them in tight. I personally don't wear underwear that often which I find that more comfortable when I was stretching for long periods of time. Whenever I would wear underwear while stretching I would find that what ever plug I was using would keep getting pulled in or out if it was a little loose. My advice is use lube to help insert the plug I tend to use a water based lube which tends to dry and then prevent the plug for slipping out on its own. Let it work it's way out by itself just keep putting it back in until you get to a point where it slides in and out easily without any trouble than go up a size and repeat.
As far as peethru plugs go they tend to be very small holes and now provide much for volume of pee but there are some out there that are nice. I have a few of them that are metal ends with a silicone section in the middle. They are designed to be worn all day. The ones I have come with a ring the gods around the head holding them in place. The only thing I have a problem with us they tend to be only one diameter in general therefore once you have stretched past that size they no longer provide any stretch. They still provide plenty of sensation especially if the end sits right at the perfect spot. My favorite is right at the crotch so that when I sit down on a chair it presses in or moves around. It is really sensational if you ride a bike or do much for exercise.