Firstly, as you guessed from the title ... the vocabulary of this piece may seem academic. It is not my intention to get guys grasping for a dictionary ... but I need to feel free to express this discussion, as I find appropriate. So I apologise for making no apologies about language. Secondly, I start all my discussions on male sexuality and sexual behaviour with the prefix - Without Prejudice- because I retain the right to change my mind. Along with others I am actively researching and thinking on subjects close to the hearts (minds and bodies) of the members of this group and the wider frot movement. As I have said before ... I am not an absolutist ... I'm an existentialist ... my desire to postulate on these important issues comes from my innate curiosity about life, love and the universe. There is no proactive pedagogy ... what follows is the synthesis of my research and thinking ... my ten cents worth towards the dialectic.

Cultural Polarisation and the Gay Male

What we know in the 'West' as 'Gay Society/Culture' is made up of many tangible aspects; relative freedom of speech and action, the freedom to make love ... have casual sex ... without criminalisation, freedom of association in identifiable gay venues, a visible and vocal gay press, gay academics, pundits and thinkers, the gay men's health establishment, gay businessmen ... the list goes on. If an individual chooses to live as a Gay ... there is a group, tribe ... life style to associate with.

Designer Gay

Post decriminalisation (where relevant) Gay activists and thinkers ... some would say Gay men themselves, have pinpointed 'coming out' as the fundamental rite of passage for all Gay men. If you want to fully enter the tribe you have to assert your homosexuality and be willing to live as a visible homosexual. Join the tribe in making a socio-cultural/political/sexual statement to the rest of society. As with all tribes 'identity' (what kind of person we are) is a common currency used to affirm shared ideals and behavioural modes amongst individuals within subcultures. Identity as we know is made up of many layers, some signalling an individual as akin to a particular sub group, others not. Identity in the realms of; dress, patois and perspective can comfortably vary with individual members of the tribe.

Behavioural modes are more resonant as they provide a common basis for familiarity and comfort within a subculture. By straying from an important behavioural totem or paradigm an individual may simply be acting idiosyncratically ... or they may be challenging the values and the central dynamics of the tribe. Divergence from commonly accepted behaviour can solicit a wave of questioning and challenging from one's peers, unsure where to place us in the hierarchy and role model pattern. Or maybe not. There is no absolute rule.

After coming out, for many gay men, the next rite of passage is to fuck/get fucked. The accepted wisdom is that ALL men like to fuck or get fucked. Either one or the other. The role the male takes in the act of fucking is immaterial, that is but a shade of a shade, such roles can be learned. Those asserting a versatile nature are rationalised as having learned a special trick ... allowable as it essentially reaffirms core group behaviour. Once these positions are taken, they are defended vigorously. Fucking is a simple, neat and uncomplicated, binary concept. Human psychology finds such 'potted' notions alluring and comforting. Declining the reinforcing activity altogether is rejectionist. It calls into question the group's behavioural/role structure. It requires the group to think and empathise outside of the confines of preconditioned behaviour. Scary stuff if you have spent time and energy integrating into and learning the customs/practice of a demanding subculture. Those men who decline anal sex altogether are branded as 'not really gay' or 'sexually immature'. They are a complicated anachronism not worth the time and energy of an ... 'emancipated, empowered and assertive gay community'.

All men are gay ... aren't they?

One of the vocal arguments of Gay activists and thinkers has been the manic insistence that all intimate relations between men constitute a homosexual sexual act. This ideology asserts a sense of ownership over all things male2male. It has become a lifestyle stand point which alienates other men who may share some desires in common with gay men, but not all. Often non-gay identified men who like to have sex with other men, declining to be openly gay, are deemed by gays; cowards who pander to the str8 concept of homosexuals as furtive perverts. Married, non gay identified men who like to have sex with men, come in for the most vitriolic attack ... branded ... traitors, cheats, cowards ... social perverts.

For many gay men these arguments are attractive and persuasive. In Gay Mythology we claim to 'know' that many men enjoy intimate relations with other men at some time in their lives (though not all do). It is somehow a comfort and a victory for gay men that 'str8 men do it too ... they're all gay really'. The same mythology claims, citing empirical data, to 'know' that even the most masculine and aggressive men, deprived of female company, or in long periods of all male association ... 'they do it ... they're all gay really'. Although most gay men have no inkling of how these interactions are negotiated. Social and sexual politics take over from myth and gay men proclaim. 'Therefore, I'm a better gay man because I'm out and gay identified. I'm also a better man ... because my masculinity can cope with the reality of my sexual urges ... in the full glare of the whole community'.

Observe the current persona preoccupation amongst gay men with; str8 looking, str8 acting, str8, non-scene. This transparent attempt to associate gay masculinity and lifestyle with 'regular' men manifests as parody ... equally daft as that of drag ... supposedly the other end of the scale from str8 looking and acting!! Gay men cannot simply 'drag up' as str8 men. What distances us from non gay identified men is the conditioned lifestyle, sex life and values some gay men loyally parrot from what they perceive as the 'essences' of the gay subculture. This phenomenon does however indicate that a substantial number of gay men are proactively distancing themselves from what they perceive as a 'gay image'. They elect to ditch the 'designer gay' role model and associate themselves much more with 'regular guys'. Many of these men openly articulate their rejection of the 'packaged gay lifestyle', (sex, partying/clubbing, drugs, sex, body fascism, sex, shopping, sex, gay holidays), asserting their individual approach to manifesting their social and sex lives. Unfortunately, many of these men transpose on to this str8 looking/acting persona the gay preconception ... grown men fuck each other. That is the zenith of male sexual fulfilment.

Gay totems ... media spin

Many posts on this site can testify to the peer group and individual pressure that is piled on to cajole frot guys into anal sex, actively or passively. That is a front line reality of moving within the mainstream gay community. The second and equally vital front is how gay men's lifestyles are defined and promoted within the gay media and the media as a whole ... often taking it's que from what the gay media reports. In days gone by homosexual and sodomite may have been synonymous to an ignorant public. Today homosexual and sodomite are synonymous because the gay community wants them to be! It is an accepted and vital part of the subculture identity. Previously illegal behaviour must now be lauded and vaunted as a banner ... a totem at the boundary of our community. Blaring out to all that gays have reclaimed and rebranded anal intercourse. 'It is part of who we are and if you don't like 'it' ... you don't belong with us.'

Frenzied with the consumer capitalist possibilities offered by gay 'shoppers', gay businesses and other suppliers market and publicise our tastes and supposed behavioural norms in order to sell their products. They accessorise and define our lives as focus groups and market researchers advise them to. This is a vested interest that will resist change. They may lose market share ... they may lose money ... if their customers are going to change it will be because they, the market forces, lead them by the nose. If the subculture definitely wants something different ... if they elect by sheer numbers to amend the behavioural paradigm ... the advertisers will let gay men know. In the mean time they are deaf to siren voices and attempt to neuter them with passive-aggressive, silent viciousness.

All right minded people accept an individual's human right to define and follow their own destiny and lifestyle (hopefully benign). However, for this discourse, media fashioned lifestyles are vitally important when viewing the gay community objectively and from the point of view of men outside the gay subculture. Media is the point of contact with 'gayness' regularly imprinted on them. The model by which they associate or disassociate with gay men. Their concept and reality of male-to-male intimate interaction seems like an alien piece of the gay jigsaw. The bigger picture is quite different for these two groups of men.

You're my brother ... but you're heavy

Gay has become a metonym for a particular sex life, life style and socio-political outlook. The preconceptions and perceived meaning which come from the word GAY, define such men as particular individuals associated with a group. Yet Gay men are sexual beings in the same way as all other males. The modalities are different is all. Driven by base consumer capitalism, trenchant collective intransigence and ignorance, the metonym and behavioural paradigm are restated and affirmed at every opportunity. Gay society still recently, partially emancipated, fails to recognise that a narrow and prescribed sexuality is as inappropriate for gay men as it is for men as a whole.

We are all keeping our distance

This is the crux of the polarisation. Deliberately setting ourselves apart from other men, essentially defining our 'special ness' ... denies our birth reality ... we are all men under the sun. Men, who know the intimate pleasure ... the singular physical sensuality of male-to-male erotic love, are kept at a distance from gay men if they do not acquiesce to the accepted gay norms. These are the men gay men do not wish to be. Yet these politically motivated feelings of disdain and pity do not sit easily with the attraction, nay fascination gay men often feel towards 'str8 men'. This intuitive, instinctive attraction relies on more than a two dimensional ideal non-gay identified male to have sex with. The attraction may also relate to the 'freedom' men outside of the Gay subculture are perceived to enjoy. Such men are not constrained by Gay socio-cultural/political baggage ... they appear to define themselves primarily as male when dealing with the sexual and erotic aspects of their lives and loves. For many gay men this is not enough. It is under developed and lacks glamour; the universal simplicity is at the same time intellectually overwhelming and boring. Thinking outside the box always is.

Equally, non-gay identified men who know they desire intimacy with other men ... keep great distance between themselves and gay society. Not wishing to make a life out of an aspect of their sex lives, they proactively decline to 'join' gay society and all male gay association. Some may not be entirely satisfied by their franchise with life (who is?) ... But they are not going to have gayness rammed up their assholes or down their throats.

Cyber Interaction

We can see on the net, that many such men now interact directly with each other. They actively demand that gay men leave their pics n post/forum sites alone. They reiterate and expound that they are not gay ... they enjoy a particular act and a singular and special interaction with other men ... and that's it. It goes no further. For these guys gays make too many assumptions about the dynamics and modalities of male-to-male existential and sexual interaction. Many posts by Gay men on these sites are felt inappropriate due to their tone of preconception about all things male and sexual. They do not realise that the perceived meaning of their gay sound bites and self-fashioned personas have no resonance with the guys who visit these sites. Moderators particularly admonish analists for offending and polluting a site's atmosphere with unwanted posts offering or promoting the butt fuck myth. This rejection is a red rag to a bull for politico and ignorant gay men alike. They act like missionaries dispensing the true faith. Much to the boredom and frustration of men who come to these sites seeking like-minded males not 'gays'.

Discovery IS Recapitulation

A signpost, which leads to the road, which leads to the bridge between MEN, is writ large with the lucid, expressionistic accounts of male-to-male erotic and emotional love ... between men who do not consider themselves gay. The language in these posts and discussions is clear and erudite, it is has the ambience of honesty shared, reality notated without the perceived meaning of an external culture. Men speaking as men. From a perspective of masculine allegiance.

For gay identified men who like to have non-anal sex with other men it is empowering indeed to feel as though we are on the road ... and can see the bridge ... to other men. Reading our physical and psychological desires articulated and elucidated by men, without condescension, patronisation or any hint of deference to the 'model gay man'; allows us to raise our voices again and announce that we are still here. And not so minimal as the analists have asserted and still assert.

Further thinking is required

So who is on the margins of what? Are cocktocock, frot, dickfight and cocktocockjo dudes on the outer bounds of what it means to be an actively sexual gay male? Are non-gay identified men who interact intimately to orgasm with some other men, on the front line or the margin of what it means to be a sexually active man?

If the cultural polarisation of gay male society is spinning off as excess baggage men who don't fit the mould (anal sex decliners), then the dynamic of that polarisation allows us take our desires and aspirations into a new space ... as yet undefined ... hybrid from both gay and mainstream societal norms. The often secret society of males who enjoy sex with other men, outside of the gay sexual lifestyle, may glance across the bridge of men and see the cocktocock brothers smiling over; right back at them.

Martin Finn
London
December 2002

© Martin Finn December 2002 All rights reserved.

Other works on this Man2Man Alliance Heroic Homosex site by Mart Finn include:

Two articles in Warriors Speak

The Cockster: Mystical Master of CockToCock and Phallic Mating

In Heroes, the essay Cock To Cock, and the accompanying story Studs.

And, here in Frot: The Next Sexual Revolution, the essay Sodomy Laws.

In addition, Mart Finn is the author and webmaster of the very popular

© Martin Finn December 2002 All rights reserved.

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