hsb

Re: Fear...

5-25-2004

I'm 19 as well. I for one do not consider myself a part of the mainstream gay community, nor would I want to be. I take pride in being myself, and not trying to change who I am to perpetrate the stereotype of the gay man. I for one dislike anal sex, and I am quite fortunate to have found a lover who doesn't as well.

I suggest that this poster talk to his boyfriend. After all, communication should be the most important part of all relationships. If he cannot accept the fact that you do not wish to have anal sex, you should dump him and not feel the least bit sorry that you did. Don't be upset for standing up for yourself and objecting to doing something you dislike, and don't feel like you're obligated to have anal sex just because your lover expects you to have it.

And don't despair, there are others like us out there.

Bill Weintraub

Re: Fear...

5-27-2004

Thanks guys.

Andy, we all sympathize, and many of us empathize, with what you're going through.

Because most of us have experienced the pressure to do anal in order to keep a partner.

But as I wrote to you, if you don't like anal, doing anal to try to please your partner is a losing proposition.

Because he'll be able to tell that you don't like what you're doing.

In addition, many guys will try to get you to do anal by promising a relationship.

And then, once they've fucked you, will leave you.

So though I know it's very difficult, the best you can do is tell your bf how you feel.

And if he can't respect that, let him go.

Because someone else will come along.

And you can help that someone find you by putting a link to a Frot page -- like What's Hot About Frot -- on your own.

Or simply saying that you're really into Frot.

So that guys doing a web search for "Frot" will find your page.

Now, Andy, you asked: "Why do gay guys feel like anal sex is such a necessity in a sexual relationship?"

The answer is culture.

Among men who have sex with men, there are shifts and swings in sexual taste and behavior, and those changes are a function of culture.

Not of biology, and not of genetics, but of culture.

For example, those of us who are old enough can remember a time when not only was anal not king, but anal was actually denigrated.

And it wasn't that long ago.

Jack Nichols, the gay activist who persuaded, way back in 1962, an early gay rights organization, the Mattachine Society, to oppose the classification of homosexuality as a mental illness, speaks, in his interview with me, of how in the 50s and 60s men into anal were derided as "brownie queens."

That's the way it was.

And it's not a secret.

As a recent correspondent suggested to me, all you have to do is visit a library with a gay archive and look at personal ads from that era to note the preponderance of ads seeking oral sex and mutual masturbation over those soliciting anal sex.

That's as recently as 30 years ago.

What happened?

The culture changed.

And I described how and why that change took place in two articles which you can find on this site and on the web:

Hyacinthine Love, or, Some Thoughts on Cock-Rubbing and the Cultural Tyranny of Butt-fucking;

and

Frot: The Next Sexual Revolution.

In which I introduced the concept of The ButtFuck Dictatorship.

And once the culture had changed, the deepening AIDS crisis, and the ideological committment of early "safer sex" educators to protecting anal and promiscuity, resulted in an ossification of gay male subculture around anal.

A process which I discuss in the introduction to Multipartnered Pansexualism or Heroic Love?

So: the present-day emphasis on anal sex among gay men is a function of culture, and we can easily trace the history and development of that culture.

Further, that culture is what historians of ideas call a " dominant culture" or "dominant paradigm," and you can read more about that on our Definitions page.

What's crucial to understand is that a dominant culture, such as the dominant culture of anal penetration, maintains its power through the production and dessimination of a myriad of messages about what's culturally correct.

Which are then enforced by peer pressure.

And that Andy is what you're experiencing: pressure from your peers to do anal sex.

Such pressure is very powerful, and it would be a great mistake to underestimate its power.

Nevertheless, you can fight it, and fight it successfully.

To do that, you need to be strong and clear within yourself about what you want and how you want to live.

And it's also helpful to develop your own peer group -- which you can do in part through this site -- of guys who will support you in your choice not to do anal.

But the most important thing to understand is that the pressure to do anal is cultural.

In most other areas of life, we as human beings accept that culture calls the shots.

For example, when we look at pictures from Iraq, we see that many Iraqi men wear flowing robes.

While men in America wear pants.

No one suggests that there's a "flowing robe gene," or that prenatal hormones have affected the Iraqi or American "hypothalamic pants centers."

We understand that this is a cultural difference, and that if you took an Iraqi baby and raised him in America, or an American baby and raised him in Iraq -- his choice of clothes would reflect his place of upbringing.

Andy, you need to understand that something very similar is true of the gay men around you; and that if we were able to transport those men back to the 1950s, their sexual tastes and behaviors would change: they 'd be pooh-poohing, as it were, anal, and talking about how much they love to get sucked and/or give head.

So the answer to your question -- "Why do gay guys feel like anal sex is such a necessity in a sexual relationship?" -- is "Because their culture tells them it's a necessity."

It's in the nature of things for that culture to *eventually* change.

Whether it changes quickly -- or years from now -- will be in part a function of whether the men who visit this site will join with us in helping to make it change.