REDMOND, Washington—Larry Sparks, 27, said that best friend Brad Lobkovich’s interest in pornographic material featuring transsexuals, or “chicks with dicks,” is a gateway to homosexuality. Sparks said that over the past year, Lobkovich has grown comfortable with sharing the fact that he peruses transsexual pornography and that Lobkovich is using the sexual gray area to cover his closet homosexuality.

“Brad originally played off his interest in this porn niche like it was a novelty, like he was only watching some freak at a carnival, but now he argues that having sex with one of them wouldn’t be gay behavior.” Sparks also said the subject matter is causing Lobkovich to spawn bizarre, confusing theories about his own sexuality. “Now he concocts abstract theories about nipple/areola ratios or detachable penises and tries to link them with normal human sexuality,” Sparks said. “It’s obvious he’s making believe a dude with tits is a woman to rationalize his desires.”

The situation began sometime last year when Lobkovich showed Sparks and friends a magazine featuring a transsexual model, purportedly showing great shock and amazement over the images. Shortly thereafter, friends said, Lobkovich began avidly collecting what he continued to call “crazy, fucked up shit” on a large scale.

“Every other day he’d break out a new magazine and just gush about how fucked up it was. After a few months, however, he was talking about how great the chick’s tits were, as if suddenly the dick between its legs ceased to exist,” Sparks said.

Although Lobkovich defends his heterosexuality, Sparks asserts that Lobkovich is homosexual: “He’s definitely trying to fulfill some secret inner need, and the fact he continues to use the term ‘chicks with dicks’ or refer to them as ‘women’ is just double speak. It’s pretty apparent to me those are dudes with tits. I mean, would you call a masculine, flat-chested person with a vagina a guy?”

Sparks is sure Lobkovich is viewing the erotic images while masturbating, because most of the collection is stored beneath his bed. He also said that he has grown more convinced in recent weeks concerning Lobkovich’s homosexuality because Lobkovich began openly arguing that letting a transsexual fellate him would not be considered homosexual behavior.

“This whole ‘chicks with dicks’ thing has now spawned some theory about how wanting the dick makes you gay, not wanting a blowjob from a dude who happens to have tits. Of course he continues to assert they are ‘chicks with dicks’ and not dudes with tits. He even went so far as to ask if a person was built like a crotch-less, life-sized Barbie doll, but carried a severed penis in a purse, would that make the person a dude? None of us had a fucking clue what that was all about. But I’m pretty sure that if he doesn’t get some cock soon, he’s going to go insane.”