It may sound weird, but such injections are a fetishized form of erotic body modification. In one picture, Tank's testicles dangle outside of his basketball shorts, his nuts roughly the size of two dodgeballs.
But his Tumblr (as well as the Tumblr accounts of several of his pups) contained numerous images of their engorged scrotums, dramatically increased in size due to liquid silicone injections. Hafertepen didn't respond to The Stranger's repeated attempts to contact him by e-mail ( The Stranger verified we had his correct e-mail address from someone who knows him), and his phone number is not receiving incoming calls. "Tank left a very detailed will I'm determined to fulfill," Hafertepen wrote in the goodbye. In the days following Tank's death, the Instagram account and the newsletter were deactivated, and the content at was taken down and replaced with a single page saying goodbye to Tank. It's no wonder that Hafertepen's Instagram amassed 60,400 followers, that his weekly newsletter had more than 200,000 subscribers, or that his personal blog,, had 2.2 million readers. They look like one big, burly, beaming family. One almost can't help but envy them and their lives together. The pictures of Hafertepen's wedding to Big Pup look like a circuit party: Everyone's buff and wearing skimpy outfits and leather gear, while a drag nun named Sister Roma officiates. There are shots of them working out at the gym, traveling, swimming at nude beaches, and cuddling naked together. Hafertepen and his pups have shared numerous images on social media of them shirtless, in jockstraps and harnesses, enjoying Folsom Street Fair (San Francisco's annual leather fair) and other gay gatherings. There are many varieties of Dom/sub relationships, including "master" and "slave" as well as "handler" and "pup," in which the submissive acts as an obedient puppy, longing for the master's attention, affection, and discipline.
In photos, Tank, Alpha, Angus, and Biff appear to have additional tattoos on their backs that read "Property of Master Dylan."Ī Dom/sub relationship is a BDSM power dynamic in which the dominant person and their submissive partner both derive pleasure from controlling and being controlled, respectively. They wear padlocked chains around their necks, a symbol of Hafertepen's ownership over them, and some of them have matching tattoos of Hafertepen's astrological sign, the Taurus zodiac symbol (a circle with horns). Judging from the pictures, these men are hairy and muscular-"muscle bears" in gay parlance-and physically resemble Hafertepen. Online, Master Dylan shared pictures and details of his polyamorous, self-made family, which also included Hafertepen's husband (Big Pup), someone named Pup Biff, and someone named Pup Angus. To his pups, including Pup Tank and Pup Alpha, he's called Master Dylan, but on Instagram and Tumblr, he's widely known as Noodles and Beef. Osborn, also known as Pup Alpha, wrote that Tank "entrusted me to be the executor of his estate, a duty that I thought I would never have to fulfill."īoth Chapman and Osborn were romantically linked to Dylan Ray Hafertepen, a well-known member of the Dom/sub pup play communities in San Francisco and, later, Seattle. He fought very hard, seeming to get a tiny bit better day by day, until the terrible moment that we were told nothing more could be done." Osborn wrote: "He seemed fine, doing the things he loved-working out, caring for clients as part of Lifelong AIDS Alliance, and spending time with his family-until a week ago when he had trouble breathing and was admitted to the hospital with what we figured was a routine infection. According to an October 16 Facebook post written by Chuck Osborn, Tank died "due to a previously undiagnosed lung ailment." On October 15, 2018, a 28-year-old Australian-born Seattle resident named Jack Chapman, also known as Pup Tank, died.