Darren

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-20-2003

I feel very empowered by what I have read on this site & discovered that after all these years my own sexuality (since I was a child) has been cultivated with the realisation that frot and Wrestling was the driving force behind true sexual me. Sadly, I think that we live in a society now which is throwaway both sexually and morally. Despite all the attention that has been forcused in the last 20 years on promoting HIV awareness, Safer Sex campaigns etc, I feel very angry that our GAY Culture still very much sees Anal Sex as 'The Ultimate Thing to do'. Nowadays, there is absoulety no excuse whatsoever why people can't change, or look at there sexual behaviour. I feel that it's very much a me and what I can get attitude - very destructive!! All the fund raising, resources and monies pumped into promoting good practice and awareness is falling into a bottomless pit, unless personal attitudes towards what they do, sexually, changes!

Darren

Bill Weintraub

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-21-2003

hi darren

thank you for your post -- i'm glad the site has empowered you

unfortunately one of the main reasons that gay men still believe anal is "the ultimate thing to do" is the AIDS Service Organizations (ASOs) and their "safer sex" campaigns

which over the years have moved away from discussions of hierarchies of risk -- anal is most risky, frot least -- and concentrated instead on the simple message: "use a condom every time, every time."

implicit in that message is that "every time" you have sex, it will be anal

why else, after all, would you need the condom?

today, major ASO organizations and websites like NYC's Gay Men's Health Crisis and KnowHIVAIDS.org have NO discussion of frot or other safe alternatives

nor will they give our site a link

instead, not only do they concentrate on anal sex but they make EXPLICIT comparisons between anal and vaginal "intercourse"

(which is false -- even mainstream gay male healthsites like gayhealth.com say "the anus is not a vagina")

but they actively support men who are anally promiscuous

for example -- here's some material culled by Chuck Tarver, author of Musings of a Black Gay Man into Frot, for an upcoming paper on promoting non-anal alternatives:

GMHC had the following on its FAQ for gay men

http://www.gmhc.org/basics/men.html

Q. I keep hearing about harm reduction, harm reduction. Whatever happened to "no means no?" As in, don't have anal sex. Or don't do drugs. I don't do those things anymore because they're too dangerous for me. Hello, gay men? Clue phone: it's for you.

A. Every pleasure, or even things that are useful without always being pleasurable, come with risk. That's why so many people drive in cars despite thousands of annual deaths in auto accidents. Gay men have a lot of practice in balancing risk and pleasure, gauging the safety of going home with a stranger, or coming out at work, or other things that seem both important and potentially dangerous.

How quick you are to give up a particular activity usually depends on how important it is to you. If it's not important as anal sex may not be to you it's easy to give it up. Those decisions vary from person to person.

the response sounds even-handed, but it's not

first of all, it's not true that "Every pleasure, or even things that are useful without always being pleasurable, come [sic] with risk."

that's a lie -- there are many pleasures in this life which carry very little risk

and frot, as it happens, is one of them

yet, as i said, on these ASO websites there's no acknowledgment of the hierarchies of risk

rather there's the very strong suggestion that everything sexually is equally risky, and that all sexual choices therefore are equally valid

is that true?

is fisting okay? gift-giving? how bout having five partners in one night?

are those all valid choices?

of course they're not -- they put the person and the rest of his community at risk for horrendous diseases

so while it's true that people rountinely balance risk and pleasure, the GMHC statement makes no effort to help men make just such balanced assessments about sex

instead, it more than suggests that people who say anal and drugs are dangerous -- which they are -- aren't "honoring diversity" and the diverse, all allegedly equally valid, sexual choices gay men make

here's another gem from GMHC -- this one's a workshop description:

Bumper to Bumper

When and with whom do you have receptive anal sex? Would you like to be penetrated but you don't dare? What is stopping you? Can you imagine wanting to? We'll discuss these questions and more in this workshop.

so that's a workshop aimed at men who are reluctant to be penetrated -- it's actually facilitating receptive anal sex -- which every study done since 1984 tells us is the SINGLE MOST DANGEROUS SEXUAL ACT -- not just without but EVEN WITH A CONDOM

moreover, studies have shown that because these sort of "condom campaigns" have the effect of encouraging men to have promiscuous anal sex, statistically men who don't use condoms are less likely to acquire HIV than those who do

that finding, which is counter-intuitive, makes sense if one understands that those who use condoms are more likely to have sex promiscuously, to be less choosy about their many partners, and to do anal sex, than those who don't

since condom failure rates are high even in vaginal sex - experts differ on the exact figure, but generally agree that condoms fail - that is, result in HIV infection - 10 to 20% of the time - and since most agree those rates are much higher for anal penetration, which is far rougher on the condom, it makes sense that men who engage in a lot of anal, even with a condom, are more likely to acquire HIV

so Darren, the "safer-sex" campaigns and the ASOs themselves are now major purveyors of the message that "it has to be anal to be gay"

and for that reason i no longer donate to ASOs and i urge the men on this site to stop doing so also

the reality is that were our message to be more widely promulgated and the prevalence of anal penetration to decrease --

the prevalence of HIV would fall also

so -- it's cultural messages, including messages generated by the safer-sex boyz, which are propping up this dominant culture of anal sex, and with it unsafe sex

and the only way of changing that is for us to promulgate our message more widely and more effectively

Darren, thank you for your post

i hope you'll think about my reply

Grad Student Impressed

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-25-2003

Over the past 3 or so years, I've pulled this site up to see what people are saying and to get an idea of I want to add. I am 27 years old. My boyfriend is 25 and we have been together for just over 9 years. Yes, we are abnormal in the fact that we met in high school, became friends and then lovers and we've stuck it out since then. Compared to our older friends, it doesn't seem often that you come across a couple in our age group that has been together as long as we have. While I'd admit that gay or not, we're conservative, I'll also state that we have seen many friends and aquaintances go through one-nighters and short relationships, and for the most part, it comes down to sex and monogomy. I feel that there is definitely a "predetermined" fate that men who are attracted to men will be sexual predators. My boyfriend and I aren't perfect and have basically seen and tried it all. What it all comes down to is that even though we sometimes partake in anal intercourse, oral sex and the like...frottage was something that started it all for us and until I found this site, we didn't have a name for it. Realizing that the intimacy we experienced during our first time and many, many times thereafter had a name, a following and a history made me feel less abnormal. I would like to thank the builders of this site for putting this information out there, and giving us "regulars" a chance to voice ourselves. I can't say that intercourse is something I don't enjoy, but every problem listed on this site is true. There are pleasures, however, there is no substitute for the intimacy of frottage between you and someone you truly love and share life with. I would gladly share details about my experiences and thoughts on this subject with those who visit this site.

Bill Weintraub

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-25-2003

hi guy

thank you for your post

two observations:

1. re "predetermined ... sexual predators"

although sociobiology tells us that men are by nature promiscuous, that doesn't mean that men have to be promiscuous

that's the point to being human, after all

you get to choose

also, behavior is mediated by culture

so -- to take another example -- we know from sociobiology that men are natural-born killers -- both in war and in peace, men can kill other men -- in the right circumstances, easily and in a heartbeat

but that doesn't mean that all men do kill, or that there aren't vast differences in murder rates among different cultures

so behavior is mediated by culture

many men, in our culture and others, are not promiscuous

and most men, in the modern world, never kill

2. you say that "there is no substitute for the intimacy of frottage between you and someone you truly love and share life with"

i agree

you also say, re anal, that "every problem listed on this site is true"

if that's so, and i know it is, why keep doing it?

every time you do, you endanger yourself and your partner for what you admit is at best a secondary pleasure, far inferior to frot

that suggests to me that you've bought into the analist myth that if you're gay, you have to penetrate

you don't

you don't have to be promiscuous, you don't have to kill anyone, and you don't have to penetrate or be penetrated

because like you say, "there is no substitute for the intimacy of frottage between you and someone you truly love and share life with"

i hope, and i don't care how sententious this sounds, that you'll learn from my experience and that of thousands of other men who visit this site

i lost my lover to an anally-transmitted disease

a totally unnecessary loss -- like the millions of others which the world has seen since the appearance of HIV and the dominant culture of anal penetration

anal penetration is not a necessity

you don't need it for intimacy, for love, or for sharing

when you engage in it all you're doing is aping the behavior of gay men which the culture has painted for you

for, after all, as you say, "frottage was something that started it all for us"

do you think that if you didn't live in the year 2003, when gay is synonymous with anal, that you would have invented it on your own?

i don't

i had never heard of anal sex before i came out

and i wish that i never had

and i would never have tried it had not my culture pushed me so hard to do so

so -- you guys have what most men so desperately want:

a beautiful, natural, innocent, frot relationship, born of a teen love that has continued to grow

stay with frot

anal kills

choose life

choose frot

David McQuarrie

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-25-2003

Hey Grad student. I can relate to what your saying. It's almost like "keeping up with the joneses". Mass media of all types bombard us with what is "expected" of gay men. It's tough I know. It's so great that you're in a committed relationship, that's half the battle.

Anal sex is a paradigm whose time is limited. I can certainly understand the pressures to sometimes conform to certain roles or sexual behaviors. You have the gift of free will though to reject what you and your partners may not wish to continue. There is no doubt, anal sex kills, period.

I hope both you and your partner continue to be a committed couple, we need role models of fidelity like you.

Please feel free to email me if you'd like to chat further.

Don F

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-27-2003

Yo Grad--

So great to read your and your bud were able to achieve a stable and caring relationship since High School. Wonderful, even inspiring to younger guys out there too.

And, that its initial intimacy started with frot.

It is precisely that beautiful teen instinctive behavior that makes M2M so fully natural that we are advocating here and something that has been perverted by the analist sub-culture.

I bet you remember clearly those overwhelmingly intense male feelings when you and your buddy first shared each other's climax, right? Close, personal, intimate and certainly masculine together.

No one had to teach you those things, you didn't have to read the technique in a book, and you had no past experience for a "guide."

Unfortunately, M2M has been twisted to mean M to substitute F in the form of analism by today's pop culture and mass media stereotype.

We mean to challenge and change that by championing examples such as yours, where guys can relate to each other as guys----and as committed buddies.

Welcome aboard bro. Hope to read more of your postings soon.

Don

David McQuarrie

Re: A Very Intelligent and Wise Site

7-27-2003

Amen to all the comments, I agree.

Frot is HOT and the only form of man to man love making that I'll ever experience. It's honest, natural, truly masculine, clean, equal and safe!

Why would you place your life and that of your partner in harms way for the sake of anal sex. Anal sex KILLS, period!