This was my response:

As a gay activist seeking to promote a non-anal alternative, penile-penile frottage, among American MSM (men who have sex with men), I often hear the same argument.

Paraphrasing Prof X:

'Precisely because penile-penile frottage (or frot as we call it), does not transmit HIV, those who practice frot exempt themselves from the problem population.

'The more MSM into frot there are, the smaller the population that transmits HIV becomes and that is for the good. But from an epidemiological point of view, it is not relevant so long as we are concerned with incidence and prevalence of HIV in the population as a whole.'

"the problem is that it is just not relevant at the population level."

I understand that that's a statement of methodology.

Nevertheless, it's just that statement which makes no sense to me whatsoever.

In other words, whenever we "men into frot" put forward frot, we're ignored because we don't have HIV.

And because we're not transmitting HIV.

But that's just the point.

We're a population of American MSM who've learned and know how to stay HIV negative.

Why are we never allowed to present that knowledge to other guys in the "MARP" -- most at risk population?

Instead, the assumption is made that MSM practicing anal cannot possibly change their behavior.

But the truth is that most men who practice frot have also practiced anal at one time in their lives -- including me.

We've moved away from anal for a variety of reasons -- some because of fear of disease, some because we simply don't like the practice.

And in so doing, we have, I maintain, inoculated ourselves against HIV with what is de facto a social vaccine.

Why is that not worthy of study?

And why is not more effort made to transmit our experience to other American MSM?

And could we not ask the same of those who are abstinent and/or faithful?

When people in a population -- and I don't care whether that population is general or discrete -- manage to stay free of a widely prevalent pathogen -- don't we need to ask why?

And whether their experience can be transmitted to other people in the population?

Prof X:

First, it is important to make a distinction between what happens at the population level, or level of society-wide patterns of social interaction in public health, and what happens at the level of individual decisions.

Fine.

But it is the aggregate of individual decisions which determines what happens at the population level.

Every time a person chooses to abstain, or be faithful, or, among MSM, not to do anal, he/she changes what happens to the population.

Doesn't he?

Bill Weintraub

bill@man2manalliance.org

Guys --

Just as there are physical vaccines which protect us from disease by building immunity -- for example the smallpox vaccine;

there are social vaccines which protect us from disease by changing our behavior.

For example: stopping smoking.

There is no physical vaccine, as yet, which can protect against lung cancer.

But people who stop smoking, or better yet, never smoke, substantially reduce their risk.

Frot men are living, breathing exemplars of a social vaccine.

Because they don't do anal, they don't contract HIV / AIDS and a host of other anally-transmitted pathogens.

But in the bizarre world of "Prof X," guys into Frot, like abstaining Africans, don't count because they're neither infected with nor transmitting HIV.

Guys, what you need to understand is that not all epidemiologists agree with Prof X.

Dr. Green doesn't.

Remember what Prof X said regarding abstinence: "the problem is that it is just not relevant at the population level."

Does that make any sense?

No.

It's sociological gobbledy-gook.

Clearly, people who stay free of HIV -- for whatever reason -- are relevant at the population level and every other level.

For one thing, they determine HIV prevalence.

If there are epidemiologists who disagree with Prof X -- why aren't they speaking up in our favor?

Because to do so, they have to endorse a specific male-male -- that is homosexual -- sexual practice.

And they're afraid to do that -- because of the religious right.

Virtually all of these guys are dependent upon government funding to do their work.

Without those funds, they're dead.

Why does Dr. Green speak on our behalf?

Three reasons:

1. He's a personally gutsy guy.

He took on the entire AIDS establishment over the issue of ABC.

He's fought them tooth and nail for more than three years now.

And he's still fighting -- the battle has not been won.

2. He's relatively immune from attack by the religious right because the religious right likes his work on ABC.

Of course, the religious right has dangerously distorted his work by focusing on abstinence alone.

In reality, what the studies show is that PARTNER REDUCTION -- which is the "B" behavior -- has been the most significant component of ABC.

The religious right doesn't care -- they like abstinence because it's clean.

None of that messy sex.

3. Like Green, we're critical of the emphasis on condoms alone.

Which has, no matter how you cut it, been a disaster all over the world, including here in America, where HIV prevalence among gay men overall is at 25%, and among Black MSM, is at 46%.

When 25% of your target population is infected -- clearly your intervention isn't working.

Why do condoms not work?

Because guys are guys.

It doesn't matter whether you're an African "heterosexual" or an American "homosexual" --

if you're male, you want the same things from sex: sensation and intimacy.

Condoms destroy both.

No guy is going to spend his entire adult sexual life without skin-on-skin sex.

Just will not happen.

Want proof?

Look at the post on this board titled Gay AIDS reporter gets infected.

This guy, JM Andriote, got infected despite being a highly-educated gay man who'd spent his career, according to him, writing about HIV and AIDS.

If he couldn't keep himself free of HIV using condoms -- who can?

Condoms are a fantasy of the analist left.

In addition, we need to remember that condoms are a recent technology.

The interventions we put forth, by contrast, are time-tested and age-old:

• Abstain.

  Men have abstained from sex -- on a vision quest for example, or prior to a hunt, or because they're part of a celibate order -- for millenia.

• Be faithful.

  Every social system endorses some variant on Fidelity.

• Frot.

  Frot has been practiced by men for thousands upon thousands of years.

  Frot's how most guys have had sex with guys literally throughout the ages.

Unfortunately, from the beginning, AIDS interventions have been frought with ideology and politics.

But if we get away from that, and just look at what human beings do and what works -- we have abstinence, Fidelity, and Frot.

FROT is a completely NATURAL MASCULINE behavior.

It doesn't effeminize.

Rather, it exalts Masculinity and Manhood.

What MAN doesn't want that?

What MAN doesn't want his Masculinity heightened and his Manhood honored?

ALL MEN seek an increase in Masculinity.

ALL MEN desire an honoring of Manhood.

These are UNIVERSALS among MEN.

Condom campaigns were an invention of feminized males in the US and Europe designed to support and prop up a culture of effeminzation and self-hate.

And the result, predictably, was more HIV infection, more suffering, more death.

Those same feminized males then exported condom campaigns to Africa and Asia.

And the result, predictably, has been more HIV infection, more suffering, more death.

ABC is an African solution to an African problem.

FROT is an MSM solution to an MSM problem.

One which strengthens MEN in every way.

And just as Dr. Green advocates for ABC wherever he can, I'll continue to advocate for Fidelity, Frot, and Masculinity wherever I can.

You do too.

And together we'll change the M2M world.

All material Copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.

Robert Loring

Re: Why aren't Frot Men part of the AIDS prevention picture?

6-7-2006

Some of the TRUEST words ever spoken:

FROT is a completely NATURAL MASCULINE behavior.

It doesn't effeminize.

Rather, it exalts Masculinity and Manhood.

What MAN doesn't want that?

What MAN doesn't want his Masculinity heightened and his Manhood honored?

ALL MEN seek an increase in Masculinity.

ALL MEN desire an honoring of Manhood.

These are UNIVERSALS among MEN.

Greg Milliken

Re: Why aren't Frot Men part of the AIDS prevention picture?

6-9-2006

So why does the sub-population of MSM who use condoms matter so much more than the sub-population of MSM who practice frot and don't engage in anal?