Reflections and Progress: thoughtfulgold

My calculations indicate I still have about .5” to maybe .75” tied up in my curve. An old calculation I did when I first started, cuz curve correction was my original reason, was how much curve affected my length then. Back then it was about .5” of my length. BUT when I got my first gains I gained them somehow in the curve and my curve length and actual length differed by up to 1.25”!

After I had my skin tag removed I got some of that length back. I may have some pre and post tag pice where I can showcase that. Got a lot of digging yet to do.

But…I’m thinking maybe hanging is worth another try. I never mastered it and I recently heard of a wrap that may make me dust off the old Bibs to get things done.

If I can inspire you then I have done my job. I am so glad that I was able to help you and give you hope. That is my main purpose here.

You can do it. All you have to do is keep the faith and be diligent.

Although I never did any hanging, it might just help you with straightening out that curve.

In any event, congratulations are in order on reaching the 9” milestone . You are in rare company, my friend. Keep up the good work, you’re an inspiration to us all.

I plan on it. The question becomes…how else does my life change as I creep outside of the generally accepted size boundaries? I know it gets rarer the further up the ruler but…well, I’ll wax on this in another entry.

I have been thinking about this for quite some time. Getting to the point that I have here recently it is an incredible accomplishment. While I may have been 9x6” back in December, I am certainly above 9” now almost every time I measure. And now the question is how far north of nine inches do I want to go?

I mentioned my new goal of 10 inches to an old friend and she has stood by me through the last few years of PE. She has experienced me at different sizes and loved all of them but when I mentioned going to 10” BPEL she balked. Generally, she has been supportive. However, she’s never really been supportive of 10 inches. Only once, in a moment of weakness, did she admit that there was some interest in seeing me at that size. It is clear that she does not find my goal safe or wise. She has minced no words in that context.

But when you make a decision like this you have to consider everyone’s not going to be supportive. Shattering the limits is something that everyone is not going to be able to wrap their head around. Honestly, I admit that the goal is excessive. Additionally, I am sure her sentiment is echoed by many women. That is not a debate. The question becomes after I shatter the limits will I retain the ultimate goal of not decreasing my sexual encounters? And, if I do, am I willing to take responsibility for that and accept it?

Because if I shatter the limits I can’t go back…

For those of you who have been following along most of you know I am not a fan of hanging or the bathmate. Thisly, most of you of also known that I am more a fan of conservative routines. Neither hanging nor the bathmate specializes in conservative or are geared toward such.

However IPR is anything but conservative. It opts for efficiency with extreme routines in short duration. And as such can provide good gains. I have played with it for a couple of months and I am on Decon now from it. So, if I can give IPR a chance I can give the bathmate and hanging a chance.

Looking at the bathmate I have size myself into what I believe is an X40. Looking at the pressurization system I think the extreme model may be best. This is because models that pressurize solely with the force of pressing the cylinder against your pubic bone are unpredictable and annoying. Extreme models feature a handball and tube system that pumps out excess water far more precisely than the precursor system.

As the owner of an original Hercules and a purple Penomet…Neither are fun to put on.

I waxed a little bit more on why I am more interested and trying the bathmate and hanging but my cell phone ate half the post. So the short version is I am selling the Penomet below and willing to try hanging and the bathmate X40 extreme with fresh eyes.

Full Penomet system, instructions, shower strap, purple tube direct from manufacturer.

Not to start an argument, but with the bellows only Bathmate models, the top end limit of how much vacuum can be produced is extremely predictable. People complain about the Bathmates not having a gauge, but you really cannot go over a certain vacuum level. I think it’s about 5 hg., but I’m not really sure. With the bulb hand pump, this is no longer true. It becomes anything but precise. I’ve never used one, so I can’t review it, and I’m curious to hear what you make of it after some use. Also wondering if your length won’t put you at the upper limit of the X40.

Well you pose great points. In my original full length post I spoke on another aspect of the handball I looked forward to. The ability to cyclr pressure high enough to spike the pump pressure ala PEFF Pumping style. Obviously this will be by feel and I have a reasonable idea of what 15HG feels like due to playing with that with air during my last on cycle. I don’t plan on running it quite that hard but perhaps close.

Additionally, pressure with just a bellow is inconsistent. Depends on erection level and precise water levels. Sometimes with the Penomet it just didn’t feel like the same pressure even when I did everything the same.

Then, the protector to keep the gaiter bite away seems awesome. That got downright uncomfortable in the Penomet. Which considering my base girth fluctuates from 7.125+ unpumped…not the best fit anyway.

Lastly, the sizer on Bathmate put me in an X40 at 9x6” and doesn’t put me in an X40 till either 10.25x6” or 9x8” if I change only one factor at a time to check for scale. Plus, I owned an original Goliath for a while. Like a day before I pitched mad fit to return it on ebay years ago. The Inner Diameter of the Goliath/X50 (humbling, by my account years ago) is a good 2.5” (listed by Bathmate) and I *can* use it but it’s more likely I’d need to stage into it to avoid testicle suckage at high pressure like PEFF requires.

But, looking at it again (visiting Bathmate site in another tab while tapping this post out on my phone)…that X50 sleeve should prevent ball suckage. Plus, my base does pack up around 3” or more in my 2.25” pump toys tube and the X40 is 2.125” (2 1/8”) so it’d probably be uncomfortable as fuck. Especially with the sleeve in…damn…

raybbaby…you may have just saved me a shit ton of money.

Just a note here. Night 2 of erections long and strong enough to wake me from sleep. I want to say this is week 2 of absolutely zero porn images. Not 100% sure.

Congratulations TG! After you gave up on devices like hanging and bathmate. Did most of your gains routine come from manual stretches?

Isn’t it great!? Ive been waking up every morning with a magical hard on that I admire for a few minutes but realize I have to let go down so I can take a piss…I dont even think about Porn like i used to… its fading away. Though I think its absence definitely affects my mood some days.

My best claim to fame is my extender days that started me in PE. Then removal of a skin tag surgery that helped me correct some of my curve. Regular pumping, for some years after I finally figured out air pumping which I still do today. Then manuals like the ULI#3 and stretching.

It’s absolutely wild. If I wasn’t currently on the outs with the gf it’d be grand.

Today, or yesterday to be technical cuz I’m writing this in the wee A.M. hours of the next day, I ordered a Bathmate. Not just any Bathmate, though. The X50 Extreme model…or as some veterans will know it…the Bathmate Goliath.

It was around 6 or 7 years ago that the original Bathmate pair of water pumps burst onto the scene. The forums were all abuzz with them. It was going to turn pumping on its head. It actually felt *good* like real oral, others claimed. You’d get big in just weeks was the entire idea. Like any other hot PE device. But…remember 6 years from this day is like…still in my first year of stumbling through PE. And of course the word of “it’s designed to not overpressure like air pumps” had me interested. I had been staying away from air pumps all this time, after all. A water pump sounds safer, cleaner…(what’d I know about device cleanliness anyway? Fat load of nothin’ at that time, tell you that)

…so I bought into the hype. I had to have one. So…how do I get one? Order online! That’s where all the PE devices are, right?

Well…sorta.

See, this marketing surge had snapped the supply chain. Demand had jumped well 2x past any available supply of Bathmates for months. There wasn’t a Hercules or Goliath to be found for…ages. Then Goliaths started coming back into availability. Me being astute and sharp of mind, I thought a Goliath would help me reach my goals faster. Please note my stats at this time are probably in the low 7” BPEL range and likely 4.5” MSEG (I still was barely into getting anything done, as I hadn’t mastered the extender yet even.) so I was obviously who the Goliath was aimed at, marketing-wise. I mean it was nearly tailor-made for my awe-inspiring “not quite 7” due to shit EQ” penis that was svelte and streamlined (cuz there’s no way to say thin in a flattering way here with a straight face, even typing.)

As I found out, with my rushed 2 day delivered eBay package…the Goliath was so incredibly large I couldn’t hope to even stick my penis inside of it and see past the gaiter. It was the second time I mistakenly kicked myself in the balls hard enough to complain. I didn’t even waste time trying to get the tube to seal. (Okay, so I tried once. Of course nothing happened but the sound of a fine china ego falling 5 feet, 10 inches to the floor and shattering next to dirty underwear.)

I begged the eBay seller to take it back. I mean begged. He only took it back cuz I immediately ordered a Hercules from him. But even that was an incredibly hard sale. But…all’s well now that I have the “every man’s Bathmate”, right?

Man, no. That’s some bullshit. Now, don’t ask me what I did with a product called “Bathmate” that included trying to run it without water. Or with like 15% full. Or whatever the Hell I was doing. I fucked around, dropped it a few times, got water everywhere, hurt myself and threw that thing and its shower strap in a fuckin’ box and let that shit gladly gather dust. Chalked that $120 up to me bein’ a really big dummy. It was easy. I assumed everyone was wrong about the damn thing. (And I wasn’t socially active on any forum enough for anyone to trust buying a Bathmate from me. I was that random total stranger who would first post something to sell that everyone thought was fishy…so I skipped doin’ that altogether.)

Years passed. Probably 3 or so. I got into air pumping clumsily. Figured it out…or not. Screwed around with other methods and got into air pumping for real. Learned it half decent. Got some gains. Became a Bathmate hater. Of course I hated the Bathmate cuz it spent most of its life rubbing in my face my inability to showcase reading comprehension after writing over 300 poems and a bunch of prose in my free time. As it happened though, the lack of a gauge and inability of many men to really understand how to handle the Bathmate sensations led to a lot of division on how effective the Bathmate is versus how much pretty much every site outside of Thunder’s Place hypes the damn thing. Being on the “Bathmate Sucks!” side became vindicating in short order and having gotten good gains without that accursed thing made me feel special.

Move on to around last year this time…(Can’t check right now, main computer is down with the actual screenshot of the receipt to give you a better time frame)…I got interested in water pumping again after having pumped pretty solid with air for 3 years and getting a bit bored with it. I bought a purple penomet by choice (Cuz they didn’t have an orange one). Played around with it. Found one tiny problem.

It left pretty serious gaiter marks on my dick around the base up around 3 inches. This only got worse if I got in the tube erect and I really took it upon myself to use the device with a semi-erection if at all. It didn’t fit me correctly, which with my base being much larger than my MSEG was no surprise. However, I had sourced information that said the Penomet was one of the largest water pumps on the market. That it and the new at the time Bathmate X40 were it if you weren’t going to use a Goliath. I put the Penomet to the side a couple months after I bought it, dejected. Went back to the Pumptoys VelSeal and my CTC DP 4000.

Bring it to a couple days ago. I’m looking at deciding to give things a chance I chalked early on in my PE career. The biggest black marks on my record were my utter failures at hanging and…Bathmate usage. I still cringed at the word ‘Bathmate’ but…I looked at the ‘Extreme’ series, that use a handball to pump water out instead of pushing on the cylinder into the crotch. I didn’t like that with the Penomet. I felt the pressurization varied too much and sometimes the pressure would bottom out early when it felt like some other times using the same gaiter it would be more pressure with the same amount of compression of the unit. This annoyed me and I noted that the Hydromaxes all come with inner sleeves to keep your base from expanding into the folds of the gaiters. So, I’m warming up to the Hydromax. I get on, do some legwork. Use the Bathmate sizer. It puts me in an X40. Good. Great… but…something isn’t right. raybbaby points it out here.

There’s a sizing issue. He brings up the operational length the X40 is made for. The sizer claims at 6”MSEG you don’t need to worry unless you’re 10”+ in length. As that’s when it sizes you into an X50. However…my own personal experience is attached below. The picture you see is of an X40 sleeve half inserted into a Penomet blue gaiter. The fit is snug. Because they both are such a similar opening size that there’s no functional difference. I bought the sleeve to prevent the gaiter bite at the advice of Big Al, who I was subscribed to and getting tips from at the time, but it wasn’t designed with the Penomet in mind and thusly did not fit. And I got mad gaiter bite with the Penomet. And stopped even trying to use it all the way erect. It wouldn’t let me expand fully, as I was even packing tube above the gaiter with ease a few inches.

…this brought me to an unexpected conclusion.

Yes. You’re thinking what I’m thinking. If the Penomet is way too small for me to expand well and the X40 and the Penomet are functionally the same size…there’s only one thing past those water pumps in size sold commercially.

My nemesis. The Bathmate…Goliath.

Since our first battle it had changed names to the “X50 Extreme” and gotten a makeover and handball system. But…it’s the same gigantic, intimidating tube. And at first…I was going to call the whole thing off. I had flashbacks of the difference in size of the Hercules and the Goliath. Of my fragile ego being smashed to bits under the weight of my hubris and a 15” polycarbonate tube…but then I realized something.

I am not who I was 6 years ago. I am not where I was physically or mentally. And to be quite frank, this is an occasion to celebrate. I’m going back to face my ‘White Whale’ and defeat it. I’m facing my fears as a PE newbie and someone who was ashamed to post numbers or speak at all on a PE forum. I’m going back because now…it’s come full circle. I’m the veteran that newbies look to for guidance. I have measured pictures up. I have reached an incredible milestone and if anyone can fit into that glass (polycarbonate) slipper…now…I can.

And that…is empowering to realize. I feel so fortunate that I could actually have this chance to go back and face the device that shamed me for years. To learn and master the one thing I honestly thought was more hype than useful. This is my chance to learn and show anyone willing to look exactly what this device can do in experienced hands. Maybe I’ll klutz it up but fuck it all, I’m going to give it my best and fucking do this shit. If it can be done at all, I know I will do it.

I did not get this far because I would back down or give up. In the back of my mind I wanted this chance and now it has come. I am ready. I ordered my X50. And after it and I do battle, fear and doubt will be vanquished…and maybe…just maybe…I’ll actually have a Bathmate X50 Extreme routine and review to post.

Wouldn’t that be the pinnacle of irony?

Congratulations on the third leg and thanks for all you share. I have learned much from you and just wanted to say thanks. Very encouraging for a new guy.