Over the years Outkick's mailbag -- and CBS's mailbag dating back to my time there a decade ago now -- have gotten quite a few anonymous questions. So I started to wonder, why not try a mailbag experiment this off-season? Every Tuesday let's do a totally anonymous mailbag. The rules are simple. You can email me any question or story -- clay.travis@gmail.com is my email address -- and I promise you total anonymity. I will never disclose your name. Period. We're in the Outkick trust tree.
You can email us anything and rest assured that your anonymity will remain forever. We'll still be doing the Friday mailbag, but this mailbag may have a different flavor. Or maybe it will run out because not enough people want to ask anonymous questions -- I don't know, it's an experiment. My guess is we'll get some incredible questions and stories. My only request is that you be honest. We're in the trust tree here, if you send me something I trust you that it's true. There are probably lots of questions or stories y'all have that you'd like to share or ask, but you don't necessarily want your name connected to forever.
With that in mind, two weeks ago we got an excellent fertility question in the mailbag.
Here it was:
Anonymous writes:
"We're trying to have our third kid for some reason and it's not going as smooth as the first two. As a result I was at the fertility clinic giving a sample. Here's my question for you. When you make the appointment they ask that you refrain from intercourse for two to five days -- they want a solid ground rule double sample. But what if you have a wet dream the night before? I haven't had one in years, but it happened the night before my appointment. What do you do? Cancel and tell the doctor what happened? Make up an excuse? Go anyway -- gotta be strong like a bull, right? What would you do?"
I'd go. Because you're not telling the doctor what happened. You're telling his hot nurse. So you have to call up and reschedule your appointment to jerk off to porn magazines or videos -- seriously, this is what your appointment really is, a jerk off session that you're paying thousands of dollars for -- because you had a wet dream. Which, by the way, is maybe the creepiest word phrase short of "moist panties" in the English language. The only thing worse than "wet dream" is "nocturnal emission," which sounds terrifying. For some reason when I hear nocturnal emission I picture being peed on by an owl.
But thanks to the wet dream, what if your sample doesn't work. The worst thing that could happen is you turn in your sample and later that day the nurse calls you back and says, "I'm sorry, but your sample was insufficient." Which means in addition to not producing a child you can't even jerk off properly.
There have to be tons of you reading this mailbag right now who have the most hysterically awkward fertility clinic experiences. I've never been, but I can't imagine picking the porn to jerk off to, how old is it? How "mainstream" is it? Why can't you just pull out your own phone and use pornhub like a normal married man? Or is that creepier? Has anyone ever brought their own porn with them? We could probably do an entire mailbag on fertility clinic stories. I guarantee anonymity for these if you want to write in.
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We were flooded with fertility clinic stories. Turns out, lots of you have been. And they are outstandingly awkward.
Here we go with the best of them:
Urban Meyer writes:
I kid I kid.
Anonymous writes:
"I had to sympathize with the wet dream guy. My wife and I had a ton of trouble getting pregnant, and I ended up paying to jerk off in three different clinics.
So, first of all, all masturbatoriums (technical term, obviously) are kind of the same: small room, dark, a few old Playboys, sterile cup, and the little door to leave your boys. Here are my Yelp reviews of our local labs:
1) Vanderbilt: Standard hospital visitor recliner with no paper on the seat so your bare ass sits right where the last dude rubbed one out. Giant TV but with 1993 (I checked) girl on girl porn. The air runs on high so they can't hear you. Bonus: free wifi
2) Nashville Fertility Center: no tv, but there was paper on the seat. Ancient boom box was playing Lite 92.9. I can't beat off to Celine Dion, so this was an issue. No, I didn't listen to you. No wifi.
So, I had one really bad experience out of the six times I had to leave a sample. It was the day before Thanksgiving, so the clinic had a temp receptionist. One desk was for the women's clinic and the other was for neurology. Naturally, I go to the women's clinic side and sign in. The receptionist laughs hysterically and shouts "You're at the wrong place! This is the women's clinic! We don't see men here!"
As everyone in the waiting room is staring at me, a nurse says out loud, "He's here for a semen analysis!" Laughter erupts across the waiting room. A small part of me died.
I'm taken across the hall to the masturbatorium, totally mortified. I'm given my cup and little paper to fill out. As soon as your splooge hits the cup, you have to note the time, seal the cup, and put it inside the little door. I did my thing and immediately move to put the cup inside the door. But...the DOOR. IS. LOCKED.
So I'm pulling furiously on this door trying to get it open because time is obviously of the essence here, and the last thing I want is to repeat this if it's messed up. All of a sudden, the door flies open, and the lab tech pokes her head through and sticks her hand out for my cup.
So there's the tech, halfway in my room, and there's me: completely naked from the waist down with 3/4 of a hard on holding a cup of semen. Now I'm proud of what I have, but this was not a proud moment. She grabs the cup and paper, says 'Happy Thanksgiving!', and shuts the door.
I ran out of there and told my wife I could never go back. Coincidentally, we were sent to a different lab the next time. Eight months later, it finally worked, and I have a disturbing story to tell my twin boys when it's their time.
Oh and your gay for (probably) enjoying this story.
As far as I'm concerned, "And there's me: completely naked from the waist down with 3/4 of a hard on holding a cup of semen," ranks right up there with "Call me Ishmael," as one of the best opening lines to a story of all time. How many people are not reading the next sentence if it begins with a guy holding a cup of his own semen and a 3/4 erection? WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?!
I guarantee you every single one of you is reading the next mailbag question.
"Just read this week's mailbag and have a story relating to the fertility clinic. Total anonymity is a must.
My wife and I have been trying for a year with no success. We started all the fertility testing which included me going to the sperm bank.
We abided by the two to five day rule because we are really trying for this kid. All week leading up to it I was totally fine, but walking into that office I was nervous as hell. Walking up to the receptionist desk, hot by the way, I had to tell her what I was there for. She told me the cost was $110 and I tried to joke that the cost was a normal Saturday night for me; she didn't find it funny and neither did I.
I had a nice nurse walk me to my room, she was about 72 years old and reminded me of my grandma. We walk in the room, it had a couch and a bathroom; that was it. She hands me the cup and says, "Make sure to get it all in, if you have a hard time producing a sample after 30 minutes then come get me." Come get you, I thought, what are you going to do!
Then she hands me the blank white envelope with magazines.
The magazines were from 1993, Carmen Electra was on the cover of Playboy. I looked through them all and just laughed at the entire situation. Then I thought, I have my phone, went to my porn site of choice and it was all over.
Honestly, it may have been the toughest time I ever had."
I actually think the paying for sex joke wasn't bad. I mean, how many people could pull off making the female receptionist laugh with a jerking off joke at the jerk off clinic? First, women don't find jerking off jokes as funny as men do, second, how many times have men made awkward jerking off jokes to the women working there? Way too often right?
I'm not sure anyone could make the nurse laugh.
(What we really need now is the stories from the women working at the fertility clinics. What a strange job ths is to have all day. How awkward must that be for them? Their stories have to be incredible).
Question, do you think anyone has to take Viagra to jerk off at the fertility clinic? Is there anything more emasculating than having to take Viagra to jerk off by yourself because your sperm isn't able to get your wife pregnant? You might as well just go ahead and start flipping through donor profiles at the local sperm bank.
Wife: "What do you think of this guy, honey? He has great SAT scores and blue eyes. Look at those lats. I probably should have married him instead of you, his penis and sperm work."
Anonymous writes:
"I decided to share my fertility clinic experience with you to try to give you something to read besides thousands of requests to ingest penises. Please keep me anonymous. My friends will know this is me; I would like to avoid anyone else knowing.
My story isn't actually about me going to a fertility clinic. I was actually in a fertility study through the Urology Department while I was in medical school. Basically, they wanted to know if sperm quality was better if you have sex daily or every other day. So they told a bunch of poor male med students they would pay us $100 to beat off every day for a month and every once in awhile come to the urology department and submit a "sample." I was saving up for a wedding, so the choice was easy - keep doing what I'm doing except get paid for it.
6 of my friends also signed up. We had to check a day off of a chart they provided to us to "prove" we masturbated that day. My friends and I lovingly called it the "Beat Sheet."
Going to the Urology Department to watch porn and submit a cup of semen to a nurse who knows you are a med student is awkward. Doing it with 6 of your friends is also awkward, but was even more hilarious. There was only one room for sample submissions, so we had to wait in line. This brought up the obvious question - how long do you spend in there? Too long and people begin to wonder, too short and people really begin to wonder. After we started getting used to masturbating at school and delivering a fresh cup to a nurse who knows exactly who we are, we started to get creative. Obviously there was porn in the sample room. Unfortunately for me, one of my more clever friends used the room before me on a sample submission day and knew I was next in line. Unbeknownst to me, he had found the most hilarious part of a 3 way porn scene (1 guy, 2 girls), paused the DVD, and turned the volume up to max. I went in to the room to discretely submit my sample within a very specific time window to try to avoid looking like the guy who masturbates too fast or too slow, and hit the DVD play button. Boom. Max volume screaming girls receiving a facial from a guy. All three of them commenting on his load. Everyone in the clinic definitely heard it and I knew it. Now I'm extremely uncomfortable and I have to get in the mood to submit a sample still within my time frame. It wasn't easy, but I think I pulled it off within a reasonable amount of time. All the staff gave me very disapproving looks when I left that day. My friend was waiting for me back at the med school and continued to think very highly of himself for the next few months. I couldn't even be mad at him. It was a genius move.
I ended up using the $100 to buy a keg for my wedding. I was sure to let all of my friends (and my wife's friends) know that my masturbation funded their beer. My wife wasn't very happy about that.
I hope you enjoyed. Try not to consume too many male genitalia today."
Great prank, but am I the only nerd wondering what the result of the study was? How did frequent jerking off impact the sperm quality? More importantly, wouldn't they have had to also pay some poor bastards not to jerk off for a month to actually complete the study and compare the results? If they paid you $100 to jerk off every day, what did they have to pay the other guys not to jerk off all month? A billion dollars? Did the hospital go bankrupt trying to find any men to agree not to jerk off for a month?
Anonymous writes:
"Hey you big gay Muslim,
Love your (or is it 'you're') stuff..big fan. I've never written to you before but felt compelled by the latest mailbag because I needed to provide a sample at a fertility clinic a few years ago and it was an "interesting" experience to say the least.
A couple of funny/interesting notes from my visit:
First, they set me up in this room and give me instructions. You were supposed to hit this buzzer that alerted the nurse you were done and while I was still getting ready I hear a nurse knock and enter the room next to me - all in one motion - then say loudly "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" She walked in on some dude, clearly while he was in the middle of jerking off!! I couldn't believe it, and definitely made sure my door was locked as solidly as possible. But the whole setup was weird...the door locks WERE kinda tricky, and the buzzer system didn't seem to be room-specific...so it's almost like the nurses had to assume they were going to the right room. Also, what kind of nurse knocks and then immediately enters without awaiting a response!?!?!?!?!?! Especially in this type of situation!!!!
Second, and actually this was extremely fascinating/confusing to me so I'm hoping your other readers can shed some more light on this for me....but I would say a disproportionate ratio of the porn supply - I'm guessing at least a third to maybe 40% - was gay porn. Do gay couples use these clinics to produce a baby with a surrogate mom? If that's the case, how do they decide which guy's swimmers to use? Or, is it that there is a very high percentage of secretly gay married men who are unable to finish with their wives because they are so repulsed by her? I was extremely curious about this, but needless to say I didn't feel like sticking around asking a bunch of stupid questions after I was done.
Keep up the good work...I hope OKTC doesn't fire you."
I'd guess gay guys use the clinics to give samples, that makes sense. How they choose which one to use, I have no idea.
Better question is what percentage of "straight" men look at the gay porn? And if you looked at the gay porn while trying to give a sperm sample because you couldn't father a child with your wife, is there any doubt that these same people are the ones most likely to call other men gay? I mean, there's like a 100% overlap here.
Anonymous writes:
"Clay:
I'm not sure where the bar is at for these stories, but I felt compelled to contribute anyways as this kind of thing just hangs over people's heads (fortunately my wife is now seven months pregnant). I would appreciate the anonymity if you run this as I'm a practicing lawyer in Canada and try my best to remain google proof (and try to avoid being associated with gay muslim racists).
During our three rounds of IVF people would politely ask my wife how I was with the male side of the process, and she would generally tell them she doesn't give a damn how I feel about it because she's the one who was on her hundredth transvaginal ultrasound and all I had to do was pull it anyways. For the guy the process isn't so bad if you're a pervert with a sense of humour (as long as you're the first one in the room that day).
The porn in the room at my local clinic was far too vanilla for my tastes, so breaking out youporn on my blackberry was 100% the way to go, but that didn't stop me from sending a picture message of the porn in there to all my buddies with the caption "guess what I'm doing right now". The picture is attached, nothing says clinical masturbation like vanilla porn and hand sanitizer.
I forgot about that picture until I was at a wedding months later and a buddy's bimbo girlfriend said she saw a picture I sent to his phone and asked me, in all seriousness, what kind of dentist lets you watch porn."
"I don't know, but I was spitting and rinsing like there was no tomorrow!"
That might be the funniest Seinfeld line of all time.
Crazy fact, do you know who played the pervert dentist in that Seinfeld episode? None other than "Breaking Bad's" Bryan Cranston. How incredible is that, from the pervert dentist on the funniest network sitcom of our generation to the greatest TV actor of our generation in 'Breaking Bad." That's range.
"Fellow Titans PSL Owner writes: (I love that he preferred this title over anonymous. This narrows it down to like 50,000 sad Titans fans.)
We have an awesome son but something has gone wrong so we visited the best clinic in Alabama for answers. 1st test was to check my "manly-ness". My immediate response is awesome I get to look at porn with the wife's blessing. Wrong, she said no way and but she came in the "deposit" room with me which was allowed. The room is about the size of a large business office with a side bathroom and counters to put your stuff off. The lights were bright UV type with no dimmers so the romantic mood was out the window but we are in an office so no chance anyway. One cabinet had the porn in it. They were not abused and looked recent based on the dates on the covers. The couch / psychiatric lounger / love bed was absolutely disgusting according to my wife. It was brown pleather with the head raised up I guess for easier get down to business action. The best and focus of my email is on the back of the room's door is a placard that stated "1 hour time limit. If a guest stays longer then the nurse will come knock and escort you out". My wife and I died laughing at why the note was there. We both agreed it was for the guy who had performance anxiety and the other type of guy who took too long enjoying himself with all the porn and probably fell asleep afterwards. Let me just tell you the truth. My wife took longer placing paper towels on the bed and sitting down then I did once she began to double click her mouse. We were in and out in under 10 minutes. Then I went to the lobby and surfed the internet on my Laptop while my wife went thru hours of physical testing and blood work. Good news is that they figured out what was wrong and fixed it, and bam we now have a beautiful perfect daughter.
Observations:
1. Deposit room is in the middle of a busy hall so noises are very noticeable such as talking and people walking by
2. Everyone knows what you are doing and no one looks directly at you when you enter or leave the room.
3. Fertility clinic gets to claim buying porn magazines as a tax deduction
I know Women are so unlucky and put up with so much crap to get pregnant and thru the pregnancy and delivery > my hats off to all moms. But my question is why are men such losers sometimes like making the Fertility Clininc Staff put a time limit in the Love Dungeon?"
Wait, your wife came into the fertility clinic and masturbated in front of you so you could masturbate too? All because she disapproved of you looking at porn? Am I reading this right? This has to be the hottest fertility clinic story ever. This is like Penthouse Letters level hot.
I also love the tax deduction for porn purchases. What a coup that is.
Anonymous writes:
"My wife and I lived in London for a few years and after having some trouble getting a bun in the oven we figured we should get tested. Told my office that I had to drop something off and went to the nice private clinic that my expat insurance happily reimbursed me for. My wife joined me since her office was in the area. Checked in and they said they were prepping the room and would be ready in 5-10 minutes. No one had ever shared their experience with me so I figured it was some derivative of the scene from Road Trip sans the nurse. Dimly lit room with top notch selection of porn. My wife happily offered to "help" but I figured this is a bucket list item to check off and told her to meet me in the waiting room. They call my name and I jump out of the seat and let the nurse lead the way. Walk downstairs past an office where a doctor is giving a presentation and off to a door labeled the inspiration room.
Things quickly then take a turn for the worst. She hands me a white plastic bag and opens to the door to the bathroom. I find out that her version of prepping a room is actually someone taking a massive dump. I walk in and the stench is unbearable and its wall to wall mirrors. I don't know about you but you never want to see your own vinegar strokes. I suddenly regret my decision not letting my wife escort me in. I basically only have the old school fan of porn and my tears for lube. Not only that but the walls are paper thin and I had to power through a conversation about some nurses loud neighbor. And I thought I would be taking a Roy Hobbs-esquire trot around the bases. Lessons learned. Ear buds and spare iPad are a must.
I'm writing this sitting in room with my twin boys that were born two days ago. All worth it in the end!"
You laugh but some conservative message board is going to take this story and use it as example of what happens when you socialize medicine. Pretty soon Sarah Palin's going to be on Facebook writing, "Thanks to Obamacare next time you jerk off at a fertility clinic it will smell like feces and the walls will be paper-thin."
Anonymous writes:
"The first time I had to go in to get "tested", I just showed up not thinking too much about it, thinking I could wing it like I did my college exams. I walk into the waiting room and there's a guy sitting in there with his own laptop. He's been here before, and is a pro. I immediately know I have a problem, and this problem is a lack of access to quality porn. This was a couple years ago and all I had was my work Blackberry, so I'm going to have to work with whatever is in that little room. It is not good; just a stack of early 2000's hardcore magazines. I don't have the best imagination and had become reliant on easy access streaming action, so my "test" took a little longer than expected. Not my finest moment.
So for the next time, the one that was going to determine how my progeny turned out, I came prepared: an iPad preloaded with a couple select vids just in case I had issues with Internet. My preparation paid off (internet access was spotty that day), and I brought my A game. I'm now the proud father of a little boy with another on the way.
Keep up the good work and stay gay."
I feel like bringing your own laptop to the fertility clinic is like bringing a baseball glove to the game, just a total show-off, loser move. What, you can't jerk off while squinting at your iPhone like the rest of us? You need a massive laptop screen? Leave your glove/laptop behind.
Anonymous writes:
"Only because you guaranteed anonymity and there is some poor soul out there whose wife hasn't gotten pregnant yet. It's getting to the point where this is becoming a real option for that guy and no one tells you this stuff. I've actually been twice, three years apart.
I made an appointment with the urologist and was panicked because I thought I would have to make a deposit at his office that day. Every room I walked passed I wondered if that was the room and judged it's privacy level. It seemed like every nurse in the office was smoking hot too which didn't help. You would think it would, but it doesn't. But alas, he recommended I go to a fertility clinic for the semen analysis.
Few weeks later I'm walking into the fertility clinic. This place is much more private, which is a relief. This nice middle aged female nurse calls me back. We walk down a long dimly lit (think relaxed doctor office lighting, not ax murder creepy) hall and turn right down another long hallway. Finally, the last door on the right is the room. I go in first and immediately notice the leather recliner in the corner and there is no question about it, I'm not going within 5 feet of that chair. I turn to my right and there is a counter top with a cup in a sterile plastic bag and a sink. I complete my turn so that the chair is behind me and the nurse is between me and the door and she proceeds to give me my instructions. This might be the most awkward moment of my life. She tells me the sample is retrieved manually through masturbation. She tells me the door locks from the inside so that once the door is closed it cannot be opened from the hallway. As she is talking, I become aware of a magazine rack on the wall to my right. I break eye contact as she is talking to look and sure enough, an entire rack of reading materials. And by reading materials, I mean penthouses and other popular titles. There must have been 20 magazines. I look back at the nurse as she's finishing up her instructions and yep, now is the most awkward moment of my life. Her parting shot as she left the room was letting me know I had the room for up to 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES.
She closes the door and I read the form that's on the counter next to the cup. They want to know the exact time the sample was collected and if any was spilled in the process. I look over the selection of "reading" materials and quickly select one of the newer looking mags. I hope I don't find "evidence" of prior usage. I do what I went to do and afterwards I immediately wonder, have I been in here long enough? Too long? If I walk out now is she going to be surprised it didn't take that long? Should I wait a few minutes just incase? In the end I decide to get the heck out of there.
A few close friends and I have had some really good laughs from the experience. The truth is the nurse was a pro about it and she did her job way better than I could. It is a humbling experience but well worth it if it provides some clue as to what is going on and why it's taking longer than it should to get pregnant. I'd encourage anyone to go through the process sooner than later rather than let the stress of not getting pregnant build up."
So when I finish an article, I have to click on a suggest tags button. That's how names and teams end up highlighted in an Outkick article. When I just clicked the suggest tags button only suggestion came up.
The Detroit Lions.
How perfect is that?
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Send your anonymous questions on any subject to clay.travis@gmail.com Anonymity is ensured. We'll see whether the anonymous Outkick mailbag has legs.
These emails were excellent. Thanks to all who submitted them.
