abe and jack

I composed the first version of this photo essay in response to a post in our Superheroes, Myths, and Wrestling Buddies series in Warriors Speak from a man named John.

John said that all his boyhood fantasies were wrestling and frot scenarios based upon mythic - historic events -- like Abe Lincoln's barechested wrestling match with Jack Armstrong, which he first encountered in a comic book -- and of course on characters from TV, including Disney's best pals Spin and Marty and The Big Valley's half-brothers Nick and Heath -- all of whom had wrestled or fought on screen.

In each instance, he imagined these boys and men fighting and wrestling together and then becoming frot buddies and lovers -- just as I had, and so many of us had, when we were young.

cock2cock love

When he grew up, John saw a video of anal sex. The grimace of pain so disturbed him, and his lack of interest in women was such, that he remained celibate for 30 years, convinced that "my sexual development was arrested in some infantile form ..."

"Until," he added, "I stumbled upon your website."

Though I was saddened by his celibacy, I was also glad that our work had been able to help him.

Still, in thinking over what had happened to John, I realised that his problems derived from society's ignorance and misunderstanding of the history of sex between men -- and from a fundamental misconception of what sex actually is.

Thus this essay.

I hope it will help other men like John understand What Sex Is.

Bill Weintraub

spin & marty

Many gay and bi men into frot -- and many straight-identified men who have cock2cock fantasies -- grew up at a time when there was profound ignorance about the extent of male homosexuality in other cultures and other times;

and are still living today in a world which does not understand what sex is, and what m2m sex truly is.

When young, these men frequently have frot fantasies based on myth and contemporary culture, including comic books, TV, collegiate and pro wrestling, and movies, and of course as teens they fantasize about and sometimes play with their peers as well.

But as they mature, they're introduced to a different idea of m2m sex, one that's quite foreign to their boyhood fantasies.

For, they're taught, the purpose of sex is procreation, and that purpose is realized through penetration.

Of course, real men (that is, men who are attracted to women) don't have sex with other real men; but if you're unfortunate enough to be a gay man -- one who's attracted to men -- you're going to end up getting fucked.

Because even if you're with another male, with no possiblity of procreation, one of you must still penetrate the other.

For that's, you're told, what sex is -- penetration.

And the sort of m2m sex which you imagined as a boy -- the wrestling and rubbing -- no matter how compelling it seemed to you, was just that: a figment of your imagination.

What is history?

But was it?

The truth is that men have wrestled and rubbed for millenia.

And that those who push anal penetration as the defining homosexual act don't understand the history of homosexual behavior.

They insist, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that even in cultures far less advanced than our own in hygiene and the prevention and treatment of STDs, dirty, dangerous, and degrading anal penetration has always been the most prevalent and common expression of male2male eroticism; and they foolishly and anachronistically conflate today's gay male subculture with the great mass of men in previous societies who participated in homosex without having any "homosexual" identity whatsoever.

To avoid those sorts of mistakes and confusions, we need to recognize how ubiquitous homosex had been among men, and particularly men of the warrior class, prior to post-industrialized society.

Simply put, the rigid separation into "gay" and "straight," homosexual and heterosexual, didn't occur until the 20th century.

greek warrior lovers harmodius and aristogeiton

Before then, most cultures supported and even celebrated homosexual acts among "ordinary" men -- though virtually all condemned anal penetration.

Of course there were some cultures which appear to have condemned all homosexual acts, though again they usually defined those acts as anal penetration.

A good example of such a culture is that of the ancient Hebrews; for though the Hebrews denounced sodomites and those men "who sleep the sleep of a woman with a man," they praised love between warriors, most notably in the story of David and Jonathan, whose love "surpassed that of women."

hebrew warrior lovers david and jonathan

But whether like the Greeks they openly celebrated homosex, or like the Hebrews appeared to condemn it, no culture had a concept of people being exclusively homosexual, or any sense that such people might constitute a minority group.

That made it far easier for men to be affectionate with each other, since no one was going to call them "homo" for doing so.

We can see that quite clearly in the relaxed and casual displays of affection, nudity, and male-male courtship in these ancient paintings and 19th-century photographs.

achilles binds his lover patroclus' wounds

greek athletes, like these wrestlers, trained and competed nude

and athletes were openly courted by other men

What these pictures, of which there are a great many, and the written records tell us, is that our fantasies about same-sex contact in other eras aren't just fantasies, but reflect an historical and very human male-male reality:

What is sex?

What form did the physical expression of that love take?

And should it take today?

Of course there were variations over time and place, but to think that an act as dirty and inherently degrading as anal penetration was commonplace in cultures in which there was little or no hygiene, virtually no ability to treat or prevent STDs, and in which a man's worth in life was measured by his stature as a warrior, is to be deluded.

In ancient Greece, for example, anal sex was forbidden, and the prescribed form of sex for warrior-lovers was a form of frot.

Why then is there so much emphasis in our own culture on penetration?

Because in its attitudes toward sex, America for centuries has been a Puritan society, in which all sex must be procreative.

As we noted, when people think of sex as procreation, they think that sex has to be penetrative.

In reality, however, most human sex, including most heterosex, is not procreative.

Rather, it's pleasurable. Men and women participate in sex because of the intensely and uniquely pleasurable sensations generated by genital contact.

Generated specifically by the rubbing of the erectile tissues of the genitals.

In the case of a man and a woman, the erectile tissues are those of the penis, clitoris, and vaginal entrance

erectile tissues are found in the penis which is richly endowed with sensory nerve endings the glans penis is particularly sensitive while the skin of the scrotum is very sensitive

erectile tissues are found in the clitoris and around the entrance to the vagina which is richly endowed with sensory nerve endings the glans clitoris is particularly sensitive while the lining of the vagina is morphologically equivalent to the skin of the scrotum

A Man and a Woman

During penile-vaginal sex, the man rubs his phallus, a genital organ, against the tissues of the woman's clitoris and vagina, also genital organs, and she responds to his movement with movement of her own, using her body so as to maximize the pleasure from and contribute to these rubbing sensations.

The intense pleasure in the act results not from penetration per se, but from genital rubbing -- to repeat, it is mutual genital rubbing which produces the intense mutual pleasure of penile-vaginal sex.

Moreover, a significant portion of that pleasure comes from the man rubbing his phallus against the woman's engorged clitoris, part of which emerges from the surrounding tissue to form a glans, and all of which is the morphological equivalent of his phallus.

In addition to those erectile tissues in the clitoris, there are erectile tissues located around the vaginal entrance, which are also morphologically equivalent to those of the penis.

These erectile tissues in the clitoris and vaginal entrance are richly supplied with sensory nerve fibers.

During penile-vaginal sex, it is the rubbing of these genital tissues in both the man and woman which creates pleasure.

Penetration is incidental to sexual pleasure, and though necessary for procreation, sexual pleasure derives not from penetration per se but from the rubbing of the penis against the clitoral tissues and those near the surface of the vagina.

And although the position of their bodies and the male's greater physical strength may suggest that the man is dominating the woman, in reality penile-vaginal sex is meant to be and usually is a co-operative act, a genital and spiritual union, in which each partner experiences intense genital pleasure based morphologically on erectile tissue, and in which each seeks to augment both their pleasure and that of their partner through maximizing the sensations generated by genital rubbing.

A Man and a Man

In the case of two men, the erectile tissues are those of their phalluses -- cocks, dicks, and cranks.

Once again, the erectile tissues of the penis are morphologically equivalent to those of the clitoris and entrance to the vagina.

The glans penis and the glans clitoris are morphologically identical, and for that reason are the most sensitive part of the genitals in both men and women.

To repeat, in both men and women, those erectile tissues are morphologically identical, consisting of cavernous tissues that become engorged with blood and which are richly supplied with exquisitely sensitive sensory nerve endings.

In fact, says biologist Sensei Patrick, "If you turn a woman's squirrel inside out, you essentially have a crank."

got squirrel?
no prob dudes
you got each other

And that's right.

Because the genital tissues of the male and female are morphologically equivalent.

So when you rub cocks, morphologically you're doing the same thing, you're experiencing the same sort of sensorially intense and super pleasurable genital connection, as when a man and a woman connect through their genitals - cock, clit, and vagina.

You're connecting and rubbing your sensorily rich erectile tissues with those of another person -- someone you desire and love.

Not only that, but there's one spot on your dick which is particularly sensitive and which gets particularly stimulated during cock2cock sex -- it's called the frenulum.

The frenulum is the bundled-nerve area just under the glans which is so sensitive in most guys that continued stimulation there can cause orgasm.

For guys in C2C sex, the sensuous and even rough rubbing of cocks causes this super-sensitive nerve bundle to be super-stimulated as a partner's tip glides and probes over the area. That means that in addition to the glans itself, the most sensitive part of the penis is stimulated during phallic mating.

So one of the prime reasons the C2C orgasm is so intense between buds is that they experience an increased stimulation right where the penis is super-sensitive.

And men know that instinctively. Most guys report that the first time they went cock2cock the other guy instinctively sought out and located their frenulum with his own cockhead----because that's where it felt really great for him too.

The frenulum. The natural good spot. In most cock2cock pics you can see that the guys are instinctively bringing those portions of their cocks together.

What about penetration?

Penetration does not equal sex.

It's true of course that for sex between a man and woman to be procreative, the man must enter the woman.

But he enters the woman through contact with her erectile tissues, tissues which are designed to pleasurably lead his cock into her vagina while giving her maximum pleasure.

So it's not penetration or even procreation which makes the act sexual in a human sense.

If procreative penetration were all that was needed, a man could impregnate a woman through getting some sperm from a pouch on his body, and placing it with his finger inside a pouch on hers.

Or like some insects, he could simply leave a spermatophore, a container of sperm, in a place where she could find it, and she could then put the sperm in her womb.

Human beings aren't made that way.

Rather, we're designed to enjoy sex, and to experience sex as the highest and most intense form of pleasure.

venus and adonis

zephyr and hyacinth

That pleasure, which derives from the mutual rubbing of the erectile tissues of the male and female genitals, has inspired much of the creative output of the human race.

So what sex is about, for men and women as well as for men and men, is mutual genital pleasure.

Penetration and sex aren't synonymous.

Procreation and sex aren't synonymous.

But genitalia and sex are.

True sex is genital sex.

And both hetero and homo couples achieve genital pleasure through genital rubbing.

Despite the clear anatomical and morphological equivalencies between the male and female genitalia, the pro-penetration propaganda is so intense that there are guys who think they won't be able to orgasm without penetration of some sort.

As Warrior Don Frazer says,

I've heard snide remarks to the effect: "How can you cum with nothing around you?" as a put-down for cock2cock.

Yet I found from personal experience that overtly straight dudes who've been boning snatch for years can and DO get off without penetration.

I had a married bud who was a perfect example. He had a very prominent, and very fuckable, frenulum, so when it was time all I had to do was concentrate on it with short, steady movements to trigger a really heavy and hot cum-soaked M2M climax from him.

As cocksters, knowing stuff like this can help expand understanding of what we're talking about to those skeptics who can only conceive of "penetration" as real sex.

Don's right.

And the irony is that anal penetration isn't even sex.

If anal isn't sex, what is it?

At full penetration, anal sex looks like vaginal sex.

But they're not remotely the same.

Because the anus isn't a vagina -- it doesn't have any of the elaborate structure, any of the erectile tissue, any of the exquisitely sensitive and rich sensory nerve endings which make vaginal sex so pleasurable for both partners.

Rather, the anus is an organ of excretion.

It's only purpose is to move waste material and pathogens out of the body.

Yet, for more than 25 years, "men into anal," a practice which centers on the penetration of that organ of excretion and is consequently dirty, dangerous, and degrading, have told other gay men that if sex isn't anal, it's abnormal, and that frot (and wrestling) is a fetish.

Let's get real.

Frot isn't a fetish.

It's genital - genital sex -- just like penile-vaginal sex.

Anal penetration, however, *is* a fetish.

It's a sexual obsession with a non-genital organ -- the anus.

Look again for a moment at the delicate and intricate structures of the vagina, designed to accept and welcome a phallus and selectively guide its ejaculate to the womb while generating intensely mutual pleasure for both partners.

Then look at the anus.

A little sphincter muscle at the end of a shit pipe, its sole function is to control, somewhat, when a person takes a dump.

Rude language?

Sure.

But nowhere near as rude as the reality of anal.

Take a look:

this is an anus

it's also a fetish

sticking your dick in a hole full of shit is bizarre

imagining your anus is a vagina is weird -- and painful

Artifacts of buttfuck culture:

a "bottombitch" displays "his" butthole
he wants literally to get fucked up

with the sneer that passes for a come-on among bottoms
a "pussyboy" presents his butthole for penetration

his shithole has been shaved so that it appears sanitized
it isn't -- it's as dirty as anyone else's

a sex pig -- aka slut or whore -- eats shit

"mancunts" present their asses for multiple partners
during sex, the "tops" will pass from ass to ass,
spreading pathogens as they go

This is a self-hating, self-destructive culture.

In fact, everything about anal culture -- the penetration, the effeminacy, the promiscuity -- is homophobic to the core.

Not only has the culture bought into the myth that all sex must be penetrative, it's bought into the myth that men who have sex with men aren't really men.

So not only is anal a fetish, it's a homophobic fetish.

artifacts of buttfuck culture A tanned top fucks a pale, effeminized bottom, his fists clenched and face distorted with pain; surrounding them are tee-shirts sold on gay.com, reading "pitcher, catcher, tight end, wide receiver." The catalog copy boasts, "As seen on TV's 'Queer As Folk.' The Catcher shirt is married in spirit to the Pitcher shirt. Great athletic mesh sports design with an underlying dirty and direct message!...a subtle [sic] and naughty message... a subtle filthy message for bros in the know." At the bottom is the ultimate analist self-defining tee: PIG.

I'll keep saying so and you guys should too.

Don't let the buttfuck boyz get away with this shit.

Shit they push like dealers push crack and meth.

Anal penetration isn't kewl, it isn't hot, it isn't adventuresome, it isn't daring.

It's conformist.

Anal is what gay men expect other gay men to do, and what straight people expect gay men to do.

Doing anal doesn't prove you're a man, or even a gay man.

All it proves is that you can do what you're told.

And that's dumb.

Cause anal isn't even sex.

It's dangerous, it hurts, it smells bad, and it messes with your head.

So don't do it.

And tell your buddies you don't do anal, you don't like anal, you're not promiscuous and you're not effeminate, and you think men who are, are fucked up.

Honor diversity?

Don't be fooled by "honor diversity."

The buttfuck boyz have never honored us or anyone else who won't do anal.

What they mean by honor diversity is honor bug-chasing, honor gift-giving, honor rimming, honor penetration, degradation, promiscuity, pain and death.

I'll never do that, and you shouldn't either.

Dudes -- can you imagine Thor, Hercules, Samson, Lincoln, Armstrong, or any other true hero getting fucked up the ass?

Not without destroying his life.

That's the truth of it.

We offer men stark choices:

FROT phallus fidelity masculinity equality freedom pleasure health LIFE			anal anus promiscuity effeminacy submission subjugation pain disease death

choose frot

choose life

choose frot

choose life

choose frot

choose life

choose frot

choose life

John was celibate -- that's sad

but John was also true to who he is and what he wants and what he believes.