New York Magazine - USA (2019-11-11)

november11–24, 2019 | newyork 37

MAR 29

Daydreaming
about a new
body.

I WILL GROW A NEW PART OF ME

By Cyrus Grace Dunham

I

LIKE TAKING NAPS at the end of the day, when the sun is

starting to set but my room is still so hot that I can’t be

in there without sweating. I took a lot of naps this August

and September. I would lie naked on top of the sheets, looking

downat my bodyandoutat themountainsturningpink,

until I drifted off. Often, in the blurry space between being awake

and asleep, I’d have this vision of the future:

I’m lying in my bed, in a different house

but still California. I look down at something

like a penis, twitching as it rests on my

thigh. Still, this urge to say “something like

a penis,” instead of just letting it be a penis.

I put my right hand under it and lift it up

to rest in my palm, bent slightly. The skin is

soft and papery, it pulses. It’s a living

creature. One I have to protect and tuck

away. For a few seconds, I just watch it there

in my hand, then place it back on my thigh.

A bee flies in through the open window,

which is rare here now. It zips over to

my bed, landing precariously close to this

new part of me I’m holding, which seems

so young. It is so young; it only just

began existing outside my mind. My penis

is younger than I am. It responds best

to gentleness, to soft and muted touch.

It’s precious to me, because it’s vulnerable

and it’s mine. My loved ones know that

I’ve chosen this protrusion so that I can open

up, not be harder, even if that happens

sometimes, too.

The wanting, for this new part of me,

was a slow and quiet realization. A flicker of

fantasy that grew into a need. And even

when I needed it I felt like a freak, with a lot

of doubt. But most doctors don’t tolerate

ambivalence, and no insurance companies

do. So I had to pretend to be a certain

type of man to get this new part of me.

A man missing something. A man who never

wanted any holes. Men like this are on

TV more and more; sometimes they’re

governors, or senators, or action stars,

or soldiers with a digital following.

The public loves a soldier, a citizen who

was once a little girl, who couldn’t help

but be a man.

The process of acquiring this protrusion

was different than it used to be before:

They didn’t need to graft the skin off my

thigh or my forearm. They took my cells and

they grew it, a child without a heart or

lungs or a brain. They grew it in a research

lab in North Carolina. So I guess you

could say my cock is my test-tube baby. They

call the technology “regenerative medicine,”

and they developed it for soldiers who

injured their groins in combat. Of course,

when the developers became aware of

another consumer base, surgeons started

marketing the process to men like me,

men missing something. Insurance was

required by law—not just state, but federal

now—to help me pay, so long as I convinced

them I was one of those men.

It took me almost a decade to get to a

place where I could do this, and I still hate

that I wanted it at all. This irrepressible

need that grew over time. A regenerative

desire. Like, as if the more I looked like

a man, the more I woke up expecting to see

something that wasn’t there. The more the

absence preoccupied me.

The more people love me, the more I want

to be loved; the more people praise me, the

more I want to be praised; the more of a man

I am, the more of a man I want to be.