Private Parts

Summary

RISK! – "Private Parts"
March 3, 2026
Host: Kevin Allison

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Episode Overview

The "Private Parts" episode of RISK! delivers a characteristically bold, uncensored hour of storytelling around vulnerabilities, sexuality, and self-acceptance. Host Kevin Allison introduces three true stories—by Rhea Spencer, Mindy Myers, and Josh Connors—that each explore deeply personal moments connected to bodies, sexuality, embarrassment, and personal growth. The episode embodies RISK!’s ethos: a blend of humor, heart, and jaw-dropping honesty, with storytellers baring experiences they "never thought they'd dare" to share.

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Key Stories & Discussion Points

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1. Rhea Spencer – "The Only Girl"

[04:36 – 15:18]

Story Highlights:

• Rhea recalls a childhood Saturday at her Nana’s house in Arkansas, which revolved around family chores and the sacred ritual of getting their hair done—girls at the beauty shop and boys at the barbershop.
• After visiting a pediatrician for scalp issues, Rhea (6 years old at the time) is diagnosed with severe cradle cap (seborrheic dermatitis)—a condition uncommon for her age.
• The only solution: shaving her head, breaking a Southern and cultural taboo for Black girls, where "hair is your crown, your calling card."
• Rhea describes the loaded trip up to the local barbershop, Nathan Dendy’s, a strictly male space—heightening her discomfort and the social breach.
• She is sat in the barber chair (with the help of thick Yellow Pages), and the men in the shop awkwardly watch as her hair is shaved.
• Despite initial fear and embarrassment, Rhea finds unexpected acceptance. The men compliment her, her mother ties a scarf a stylish "grown-up" way, and, with sunglasses and confidence, Rhea realizes she will be okay.

Notable Quotes:

• "I'm a little girl, this is Arkansas. And so we are Southern. But not only am I Southern, I'm black people southern, so I'm real Southern. And your hair is your crown, your hair is, this is your calling card." — Rhea Spencer [07:10]
• "Big girls don't cry. I absolutely, positively will not cry. But then the sound of the clippers begins." — Rhea Spencer [09:55]
• "I don't want to look like a boy, but my hair isn't shiny like the boys. And I know it isn't as long as the girls, but hair's not the only thing that makes you a girl. And I think, this is all right." — Rhea Spencer [12:17]
• "You can't tell me, Jack, I am all of the things in my Granimals, like, please and thank you. I know, I know." — Rhea Spencer [13:24]

Memorable Moments:

• The emotional tension of a little Black girl entering a sacred male space.
• Rhea’s humorous yet poignant comparison of family hair types—"good haired girl," "water wave hair," and feeling she had "good enough to not shame the family hair."
• The moment of transformation: from fear and shame to self-acceptance and a sense of pride leaving the barbershop with her butterscotch candy.

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2. Mindy Myers – "Ample Package"

[20:57 – 24:57] (Anecdote segment)

Story Highlights:

• Mindy, re-entering the dating scene after divorce, goes to a sex therapist for advice.
• The therapist prescribes a set of dilators (dildos) to help her prepare for intimacy, humorously named “The Boy Scout,” “Pee Wee Herman,” “Brad Pitt,” and “The Rock,” each successively larger.
• Mindy purchases the four-pack, then promptly forgets it among her busy life as a culinary educator.
• A mix-up at her cooking school: while observing a class, Mindy watches in horror as a student pulls “The Rock” (the largest dildo/dilator) from a bag of utensils and stirs bechamel sauce with it—then licks it to test the creaminess.

Notable Quotes:

• "I call this dildo the Boy Scout because it can get you back into the dating scene, and hopefully you will not find a boy with a dildo that thin." — Sex Therapist (as recalled by Mindy) [21:39]
• "She pulls out the Rock. My mouth was open, I was absolutely in shock. And she starts mixing the bechamel sauce with the Rock." — Mindy Myers [23:30]
• "The children were indeed hands on." — Mindy Myers [24:53]

Memorable Moments:

• Mindy’s deadpan delivery about the naming of each dildo.
• The slow-motion trainwreck (in her telling) as she realizes what the student is stirring with in the middle of a class.

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3. Josh Connors – "Butt Plug Inferno"

[24:57 – 32:06]

Story Highlights:

• Josh is heartbroken after his boyfriend, Damian—a model whose face ends up on billboards across town—breaks up with him.
• Their ongoing, late-night, less-than-satisfying hookups are complicated by Damian being HIV-positive.
• Josh shares the fear he carries—growing up in the shadow of the '90s AIDS crisis—while navigating safer sex.
• A comic but vulnerable story: after using a butt plug with Damian, Josh becomes obsessed with sterilizing it. He falls asleep while boiling it, triggering a smoke alarm and nearly evacuating his apartment building.
• The incident prompts an honest conversation with Damian about their relationship and what each truly wants.
• They end up moving in together; Josh gains understanding: seeing Damian take his meds, learning that "undetectable means untransmissible," and letting go of some old anxieties.
• Eventually, trust grows. They have a lasting partnership, children, and a home together.

Notable Quotes:

• "This sex toy had AIDS all over it and I had to get it off." — Josh Connors [27:38]
• "I realized that I had to be a little more honest with Damian about what I wanted. And to his credit, he was honest with me that he did not want what I wanted. Until one day he did." — Josh Connors [29:45]
• "I began to understand, really internalize, that being undetectable means that the virus is untransmissible." — Josh Connors [30:39]
• "I'm happy to say that 10 years later, Damian and I still have no condoms. We have three kids, a 30 year mortgage, and four spare butt plugs." — Josh Connors [31:52]

Memorable Moments:

• The intersection of medical anxiety, humor, and love: burning the butt plug while obsessively sterilizing.
• The heartfelt, yet gently comedic, reflection on family, growing together—and the punchline: "four spare butt plugs."

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Notable Interludes and Host Comments

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Kevin Allison’s Reflections & Listener Mail

[16:19 – 20:57]

• Kevin shares a moving letter from a Patreon supporter, Colby, who credits RISK! with helping him deal with biases rooted in his Southern upbringing and grow into a more open, accepting person.
  • "Risk changed my life and it's partially the reason I am who I am today." — Colby (read by Kevin Allison) [17:17]
• Kevin pitches the value of the RISK! Patreon and reiterates the importance of listener support.

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Playful Segment on "Ad Break Bumpers"

[16:11 – 16:19, 36:19 – 37:53]

• After show interludes featuring repeated "we’ll be right back/we’re back" whispers, Kevin jokes about their retirement due to listener feedback on their creepiness.
• Extended, tongue-in-cheek credits and skits about the "right back guy" not being allowed to "come back," played by John La Sala, Rhea Spencer, Mindy Myers, and Retward von Dernberg, closing out the episode with comedic absurdity.

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Highlight Timestamps

• [04:36] Rhea Spencer’s "The Only Girl" story begins
• [12:17] Rhea’s realization: "hair's not the only thing that makes you a girl"
• [13:24] Rhea reclaims her confidence with her scarf and sunglasses
• [20:57] Mindy Myers’ "Ample Package" begins (dildo anecdote)
• [23:30] Mindy’s “the rock” incident in the classroom
• [24:57] Josh Connors’ "Butt Plug Inferno" story starts
• [27:38] "This sex toy had AIDS all over it" – Josh’s anxiety about sterilizing the butt plug
• [30:39] Josh on learning "undetectable means untransmissible"
• [31:52] Emotional close: “10 years later, Damian and I... four spare butt plugs”

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Tone and Style

The episode is candid, humorous, compassionate, and at times deeply moving. The speakers' styles range from Rhea’s warm, nostalgic storytelling with sharp social observations; to Mindy’s dry, self-deprecating humor; to Josh’s fusion of comic anxiety and heartfelt vulnerability.

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Closing Remarks

"Private Parts" stands out as a quintessential RISK! episode—a safe space for confessions both hilarious and vulnerable. It touches deftly on race, gender, sexuality, shame, intimacy, and self-acceptance, reminding listeners of the transformative power of sharing our private parts, both literal and metaphorical.

Transcript

[Kevin Allison]

On this episode of Risk, you'll hear

[Rhea Spencer]

there is something very, very wrong.

[Mindy Myers]

And you'll hear, I call this dildo the boy Scout.

[Kevin Allison]

And you'll hear, four spare butts. And me, Kevin Allison, on the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare.

[John La Sala]

We'll be right back.

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[John La Sala]

Hey, Sal. Hank.

[Kevin Allison]

What's going on?

[John La Sala]

We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana, and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and

[Josh Connors]

it got delivered the next day.

[John La Sala]

It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.

[1-800-Contacts Advertiser]

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[Mindy Myers]

Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today.

[1-800-Contacts Advertiser]

Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.

[John La Sala]

And breathe.

[1-800-Contacts Advertiser]

Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.

[Mindy Myers]

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[John La Sala]

We're back.

[Kevin Allison]

Okay, folks, this episode is called Private Parts. This is our good friend Retward von Dernberg behind me now. Who you can [e-mail] now, just two quick things. First, my next online storytelling workshop starts on April 8th. It'll meet for eight Wednesdays at 8:30pm Eastern Time and you can email me at kevinrisk-show.com to learn more. And Our next Risk Live show in New York City has one hell of a cast and it's on March 17th. Kelly Dunham, Kenice, Mobley, Bailey Swilley will all be telling stories. JC Cassis will be hosting. And if you have a five minute story on the theme, bold choices, you might be called up on stage to share that. Tickets are at risk-show.com live now. Later on the episode we'll be hearing from Josh Connors and Mindy Myers. But to start things off, a story by a good friend of the show, Rhea Spencer, that was recorded at a show we co produced. Brad Lawrence and Aaron Barker did a wonderful job with a particular evening of the Story Collider back in December. And here is Rhea Spencer at that show now with a story we call the Only Girl.

[Rhea Spencer]

Saturdays are always kind of like exciting days with a lot of stuff that was going on back when I was a little kid at my nana's house, aunts, uncles, cousins would be coming in and out and there was cooking to be done, there was shopping to be done. In the afternoons, typically when all the chores were finished, the girl cousins would go over to Ms. Atkinson's Beauty Shop to get our hair hot combed into submission, and the boy cousins would walk up the hill to Nathan Dendy's barbershop where they would get their head shaved and polished to the point where it practically like gleamed in the sun. So this particular Saturday, there's like so many something else that's in the air. And even though I'm a little kid, I can feel that something's kind of off because my mother and my grandmother are talking to me in that sugar plum voice that adults use for little children when they're trying to make like there's nothing wrong. And you know when you're good, there is something very, very wrong. They are talking about a doctor's appointment that I had had a couple of weeks before. I'm six years old and we went to the pediatrician to talk about my owies because I have these red scabs and yellow pussy spots and stuff like that all over my entire scalp. And I know that you're not supposed to scratch them, but they're itchy. And so we had gone to the pediatrician. My mother had decided and tried what she know how to do. So we'd been at the doctor's office and the doctor's telling my mom and that I have something apparently called infantile seborrheic dermatitis, which in English is what the old people call cradle cap. Newborns get cradle caps. You know, babies get cradle cap. Kindergarteners don't get cradle cap. 5, 6 year olds don't get cradle cap. Guess who has cradle cap? And I got it bad. I am like, call me itchy and scratchy. The stuff is just actually happening everywhere. And there was this conversation that was taking place and I see my mom getting more and more anxious and she's asking questions like, are you sure there's nothing else? Is there nothing else we can do? And saying, well, you know, don't forget that it's really important to have good contact when you're going through and you're doing this treatment. So it would really be best. And we need to be able to get underneath the hair. Because I'm a little black girl. I got a little black girl frill. And as they were having this conversation, I see my mom become convinced. And that's when it is decided that the best way for me to receive the treatment I need is for them to shave my head. Now I'm a little girl, this is Arkansas. And so we are southern. But not only am I Southern, I'm black people southern, so I'm real Southern. And your hair is a thing. Your hair is your crown, your hair is, this is your calling card. This is the thing that people talk about. People talk about like the good haired girl, this, that and the next thing. My sister was known as a child with good hair because she had the thick hair that was down to her shoulders. The longer the hair is, the better in her pigtails that would like flow behind her if she was running or riding a bike. And my cousin Lynette, she had like what they call water wave hair, which is you could just sprinkle some water on it and you could twirl it like around your finger and it fell in these little locks in and around her face and framed it perfectly. And I had good enough to not shame the family hair and now they were going to have to cut it all off. So my mom and my nana in their sugar plum voice is letting me know that I'm on my way up to Nathan Dendy's barbershop and I am floored. 56 year old girls do not go to the barbershop. The barbershop is the definition of man land. There is a very, very clear divide and this is not a place that little girls would ever tread. My cousins had told me that inside of the barbershop it's like the men get in there and they yell and they talk politics and they talk sports and they talk trash. And they even use some of the words that I'm not supposed to know what those words actually are, but I've heard them on the Richard Pryor records late at night. But don't tell anybody. They use those words there too. So I cannot believe that I'm actually going to the barbershop. As we get there, it's kind of like they can't believe, frankly, that I'm in there either. If you walk into a room and it was like, pause, like people, like mid page turn, mid checker drop. They were like, what in the world is happening here? Because I come in with my mother, who is a self proclaimed and rightly so southern belle from her head to her toe. I am in my very best geranimals with my color coordinated little patent leather purse. And I come bumping into the barbershop. And have you ever been in a room with where you can watch everybody looking, but they're trying so hard not to look that they're actually, like, just staring? And I don't have a real sense as to why Nathan Dindy's barbershop is an institution. Nathan Dindy is one of my grandfather's best friends. In a time of crisis, you rally to your people. So Nathan Dindy is the only person that my mom will trust with this assignment. So there's three chairs lined up. I'm in the center chair. So if you can imagine this going along, it's like I am in the center of the barbershop. I am the show. As I walk up to him, Nathan's like, well, you know your granddaddy already called you ready to hop up? Like, yes, sir, I am. So I shimmy, shimmy, shimmy into the grown up barber chair. I am too young. I'm too small for said chair. So I have to like jump back down. And then he puts me on those two yellow pages and we had the extra thick yellow pages. So I shimmy, shimmy, shimmy back up and I sit on the yellow pages. And he puts the cape all the way around me and I'm swimming in it, but I can just see the tip of my Buster Brown shoes. And I sit and my mom is leaning forward. And the men, out of the corner of their eyes are trying not to stare. And it starts to happen. Cut, fall, cut, fall. Puffs of hair hitting the ground. In little girl land, watching yourself being stripped of all the things that would make you the pretty little thing, like they would always tell you. And it's all falling off my head, my hair. And I'm sitting there and all I can think is, like, I'm looking at my mother and she's smiling back at me. And big girls don't cry. I absolutely, positively will not cry. But then the sound of the clippers begins. And it's buzzing and it's loud and I'm trying not to squirm and make it all the way through. And the conversation in and around the room, it's almost like it's dimmed a little bit because as I'm sitting there, Nathan Dindy takes a towel and he's gently wiping in and around the scabs. The rest of my hair going through, hitting the floor. And I'm sitting and I don't really know what happens next. He spins me around in the chair and he gives me a giant hand mirror. And I can see myself and you know, all the things that I'd heard about, like the, you know, the water wave hair, the really, really pretty hair. It's like I don't have any of that hair anymore. And I look a little scrawny, but I think I look okay. Do I look okay? Like, I think. I think maybe this is okay. And I smile. And you could feel the barbershop exhale around me. You could feel. And it was like, woof. And I'm looking and I'm like, I don't want to look like a boy, but my hair isn't shiny like the boys. And I know it isn't as long as the girls, but hair's not the only thing that makes you a girl. And I think, this is all right. And then my mom from somewhere, she has a scarf. And she ties the scarf around my head, but she ties it around my head and neck with the bow, the grown up way where you have a little strap at the end of it that you could throw over your shoulder. And I look like Tabitha from Bewitched. I am now inspired. I reach into the patent leather purse that I brought along with me, remembering that I have in my bag Mickey Mouse sunglasses, my white Mickey Mouse shoes with the little Mickeys on top. You can't tell me, Jack, I am all of the things in my Granimals, like, please and thank you. I know, I know. And the men are now treating me like a granddaughter. And one of them even says, like, I think you look mighty fine. And I'm like, well, thank you very much. And then from somewhere, miraculously like, hold up. Is that like a peppermint? Is this butterscotch? Like, nobody said there would be candy. Y' all could have just led with the candy. We had to go through all this. So as I'm leaving in my shades and my scarf is tied around me, the only thing that I really know for sure is that it's kind of okay. I had to go to Nathan Dindy's barbershop, and I had probably the most special day of all of the girl cousins and all the boy cousins all together. And I cannot wait to finish my butterscotch and tell them, thank you.

[John La Sala]

We'll be right back. Right back, right back.

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[John La Sala]

We're back.

[Mindy Myers]

Back.

[John La Sala]

No, we're back.

[Rhea Spencer]

Back.

[John La Sala]

Can't do this anymore.

[Mindy Myers]

No more.

[John La Sala]

I'm done. No. No. God. Do it. Don't do it.

[Retward von Dernberg]

No.

[Rhea Spencer]

No, no, No.

[Kevin Allison]

Welp. Looks like the ad break bumpers finally broke. Or if I'm being honest, several of you wrote in saying that our editor, John La Sala whispering, we'll be right back and we're back was the most horrifying thing you'd ever heard. So we've retired it. But I'm sure those whispers are in a better hollow or glen now, roaming over clover pastures where other mumblings of bumpers go to. The great lack of of murmurs or something like that. This is risk. Whisperless risk. And this is our buddy, Retward Von Dernberg behind me again. And you can find so much more of his music at Music Retward. And we just heard another longtime friend of the show, Rhea Spencer. Rhea can be found belting out classic rock and sweet soul music with her band, Girls on Top. She has appeared in a ton of shows around New York City, and you can find her on Instagram. Spenceria, folks, one of our Patreon patrons, Colby, sent us this amazing note with their donation to help keep Risk running. Colby said Risk changed my life and it's partially the reason I am who I am today. I would like to pitch a Risk saved me theme. Here's my story. In 2015, I was 13 and my father had gotten me into podcasts. One night as I was about to fall asleep, my podcast app switched to a different show and I heard this cheery man named Kevin saying that on this episode I would hear and then the voice of another guy saying, and so I realized I was taking an emotional shit behind the van. And it made me laugh my ass off. It was the start of my blossom into actual maturity. Risk would become important to me as I pulled the roots of transphobia, racism, homophobia, and many other biases from myself that had been put there by the South. I have many recollections of hearing stories from people on Risk and recognizing and pulling these parts of deep rooted hatred from myself. I now live in Canada with my boyfriend. And while Risk isn't the only reason, I will say it is a big part in why I became a better person, why I am who I am, and why I went on to study psychology. Thank you so much, Colby. That means so, so much to us. You have no idea. And yes, it's true. Risk simply could not continue to operate without the financial support of our listeners. You can join our Patreon and get nearly 300 bonus stories and an ad free episode feed. You can watch live shows so much more, [e-mail] risk and if you're already a patron, consider moving to a higher tier. Or you can send us a one time donation at PayPal. Me riskshow. Now, in a little bit, we're going to hear from Josh Connors. But first, a story from Mindy Myers. Mindy is a playwright, storyteller, young adult book author and culinary educator. Here's Mindy now with a story we call Ample Package.

[Mindy Myers]

About a year after I got divorced, I decided to get back into the dating scene. But I thought I needed a little help. So I went to see a sex therapist. And after an examination, she said to me, oh, yeah, you're kind of tight down there, but I have a solution. I'm like, okay, lay it on me. So she brings over a case and pulls out, initially a dildo. The dildo was thin and white and not contoured. It was just a long cylinder. She says to me, so I call this dildo the Boy Scout because it can get you back into the dating scene. And hopefully you will not find a boy with a dildo that thin. But I have another dildo. And she pulls out the next thickest dildo. And this one she called Pee Wee Herman. Now, Pee Wee Herman was the same length but thicker around, and she says, after you Use the boy scalp for a week or two, then you graduate to Pee Wee Herman. After Pee Wee Herman, she takes out the next dildo. This, she says, is Brad Pitt, so it's clearly thicker than Pee Wee Herman. And she says, if you can handle Brad Pitt, you'll be in good shape. But we're not done yet, she says, and she pulls out the next really thick dildo. And she says, I call this one the Rock. And if you meet a guy that's the Rock, have a great time. So I was happy to know that I was going to go back into the dating section scene and be prepared. I ordered the four pack and then I just sort of forgot about it and I returned to my everyday life, which was running a cooking school. And so we had teachers and classrooms. The walls in the main office were covered with cookware. Teachers would come and go and collect the cookware off the walls and take it to their classrooms. But we had a complaint from a school that. And I decided I would go down to the school and see if the children were indeed hands on. So I got there and I saw the teacher in the back of the classroom with the majority of the kids, and in the front was a girl making bechamel sauce. And she added the cream and the flour and calls back to the teacher, but what should I mix it with? And the teacher says, well, next to you is a variety of cooking tools. Why don't you just pick one of those? And she pulls out the rock. My mouth was open, I was absolutely in shock. And she starts mixing the bechamel sauce with the rock. And the teacher says, well, you're not done until you taste that it's creamy. And so she takes a lick off of the rock and my mouth is at my knees, absolutely in shock. The children were indeed hands on.

[Josh Connors]

So I'm waiting for the train at Highbury in Islington and I'm staring at a billboard across the way. It's an ad for Bulmer's cider. And the ad has a guy who's like lifting an icy cold glass of Bulmer cider to the sun. And this guy has wavy red hair, he has Tom of Finland mustache, and he has cheekbones so defined they could cut butter. And I'm looking at this ad and I just feel so depressed because I know the guy in the ad, his name is Damian and he had just broken my heart. I had met Damian six months previous at a winter solstice party. Damian had a Scottish accent that was simultaneously irresistible and incomprehensible. And if you realize that all the guys I'd met pretty much until then, I had met through their online profiles. Damon. I had immediate chemistry, and it felt amazing. And so I went pretty quickly into boyfriend mode. Hey, Damien, let's. Maybe we should go away to Berlin for the weekend. Hey, Damien. My friends from college are having a picnic. You should come. Damien, my parents are in town visiting. You should totally meet them. And I don't think I fully realized that Damian didn't really want to be anyone's boyfriend. When he went to the picnic, he kind of hid in the corner. He definitely skipped out on lunch with my parents. And that summer, when he broke up with me, I was devastated. Made much worse by the fact that his big fucking laughing face was 8 foot high in billboards all over town. But when you're gay, East London is basically a village. And so soon enough, we were running into each other again. And that basically took the form of. Well, usually around 3 o' clock in the morning when the Dolphin, the local late night pub, has closed, he would send me a text and he would pretend that he happened to be in my neighborhood, and I would pretend that I still happened to be awake. I wouldn't say it was satisfying, but it was hot. Now I know what all you guys are thinking.

[LifeLock Advertiser]

You're thinking the same thing that my

[Josh Connors]

friends were thinking at the time, which is, this guy is bad news. Yeah. But there's something else about him that made me nervous. Damian was HIV positive. And so you have to understand that I came out in the 90s. My parents had friends who had died of AIDS. And so safe sex very much informed my approach to sex and sexuality. And even though probably by that time I knew that there were advances in treatments for hiv, in my head, it was still very important that I be conservative about who I slept with and how I slept with them. And so one night before I had buzzed him up to the 14th floor of my building, I had an idea. So I took out this sex toy, right? How many people in this room have ever held a butt plug? Not too many. Okay, so I'll explain. A butt plug is silicone. This one is black. It's kind of shaped like a little Christmas tree, but much less spiky. Anyway, so we used the butt plug. It was really fun. And then, as he normally would, he made his way home. And in sort of the afterglow of our time together, I was looking at this butt plug and I suddenly realized this sex toy had AIDS all over it and I had to get it off. Now, I mean, I had attended a ton of sort of sexual health seminars, so I knew that you had to wash these things with soap and water, but I was like, oh, maybe I could be a little more comprehensive. I'm not sure. So I started searching on Google. And on Google it said that maybe you should boil it for 10 minutes. And then someone else on Google said that maybe you should boil it for 20 minutes. And I really remember someone on Google saying that really it's just best to maybe boil it for, you know, for half an hour. And so I put it in a little pot of water and I put it on the stove. At this point, I was pretty exhausted and kind of flustered, and so I sat down on the sofa. Two hours later, I was woken up by the of the smoke alarm. And I was very out of sorts. I couldn't see anything. I don't have my glasses on. So I started bumbling around the house. I sort of followed the smoke, and I follow the smoke and I end up in my kitchen and I'm staring at this pot and there is the sad, charred little nubbin of a butt plug. But unfortunately, I didn't really have time to mourn the little guy because the smoke alarm is still going off. And I realize I live in an apartment building, 200 people, and someone's going to call the fire department department, and the fire department is going to evacuate everyone. And I'm going to have to look at all my neighbors and say, you were all evacuated at 3 o' clock in the morning because I burnt a butt plug. And so I went to work. I started opening as many windows as I could. I grabbed the pillows from the sofa, sort of flapping them like I'm kind of crazed pterodactyl, trying to get all the smoke away. And eventually it dissipates and I just flop into bed. And the next day I woke up and I thought about it, and I realized that I had to be a little more honest with Damien about what I wanted. And to his credit, he was honest with me that he did not want what I wanted. Until one day he did. It was a night he had stayed over, and that morning we had had a typical kind of tearful conversation. And suddenly he said, hey, let's give it a go. I don't think I really believed him until maybe two weeks later when he still hadn't moved out of my apartment. But I soon learned that living with Damien felt really different than hooking up with Damien, particularly when it came to hiv. I could see him taking his meds every day. He would answer all of my dumb questions about how he contracted it, what it was like to live with hiv. And I began to understand, really internalize, that being undetectable means that the virus is untransmissible. And I remember, I don't know, a few months after we were together that I had opened a drawer in our bedroom and I saw one of those, like, silvery strips of condoms. And I looked at it and I realized that I didn't need it anymore. It was a really weird feeling. It had been part of my life, my attitude towards sex for so long. And so I took it and I threw it away because I realized that I love this guy. I trusted this guy. And I could let go of that part of my life. I'm happy to say that 10 years later, Damian and I still have no condoms. We have three kids, a 30 year mortgage, and four spare butt plugs.

[Retward von Dernberg]

Down and out Shout it out loud Help me Lord I'm on a roll and won't let up Spinning fast Let it all pass Shake it off I'm on the edge and won't shut up Turn it up and down I'm spinning round and round I'm coming in the sky Racing through the night so high

[Kevin Allison]

this is Risk. This is Retward von dernberg behind me one one last time you can [e-mail] and we just heard from Josh Connors with a story we call Butt Plug Inferno. Now, Josh's story was recorded at the Artichoke Story Workshop show. The Artichoke are good friends of ours. They have a phenomenal show up in Beacon, New York. And if you live in the Hudson Valley, you could take that storytelling workshop from which Josh's story came. Just go to artichokeshow.com and you might have noticed Mindy's story was a shorter one. We call those anecdotes. We love those short stories. If you want to pitch one to us, go to risk-show.com anecdote. Folks, we've had some haters again on Apple Podcasts. So get on over there and give us some five star reviews. It helps so much. It really helps uplift the profile of the show over at Apple Podcasts. Just give us a good shout out and a good five star review. And then Spotify or podchaser reviews are also important. So help us out. And we've got another Best of Risk episode coming up. So if you know what your favorite stories from the past months were, you can go to risk-show.com bestofrisk and you'll find a poll there where you can see all the synopses of all the candidates and you can vote for the ones you like. And one last time, my next online storytelling workshop is on April 8th at 8:30pm Eastern Time. It'll meet every Wednesday and you can find out everything you need to know about it at kevinrisk-show.com and then again, our March 17th show at Caveat in New York City is not to be missed. That's at risk-show.com live. And that will do it for private parts. This episode was directed by Taj Easton and edited by Jeff Barr. All the stories were also edited and sound designed by Taj Easton. Thanks to our business director, J.C. cassis, plus our casting director, Cindy Freeman. And the dying. We'll be right back. Whisperer was played by John La Sala. Folks, today's the day. Take a risk.

[Retward von Dernberg]

Turn it up and down I'm spinning round and round I'm up Comet in the sky Racing through the night so high Turn it up and down Standing round and round I'm a rocky blazing bright Soaring through night Turn it up and down I'm spinning round and round I'm a star that lights the way Riding through the Milky Way Turn it up and down I'm spinning round and round I'm a beacon in the night Shining through Through to morning light.

[John La Sala]

We'll be back. I. I'll be back. They said I would come. They said I would come back. Please. Please let me come back. Well, okay, but I'll be back, right? I mean, come on. I'm the right back guy. Please, you gotta let me come back. Guys. Guys, where are you? I need to come back. Please don't leave me here.

[Rhea Spencer]

No, no.

[John La Sala]

Don't leave me here. I don't. I don't want to be here forever. No.

[Mindy Myers]

No.

[John La Sala]

I need somebody help me.

[Rhea Spencer]

You said I would be able to come back. And I'm not coming back ever again.

[Retward von Dernberg]

I wanna come back.

[Kevin Allison]

That was the most horrifying thing you'd ever heard.