We've been tracking LGV's progress since last spring -- when it was in Europe.

By Christmas, it was in San Francisco.

Now it's in New York.

And so it will remain.

An inescapable reality in the lives of men who have sex with men.

When I came out in 1972, anal penetration was a denigrated and minority practice.

And the gay male community was healthy.

Does anyone get it?

There is a direct correlation between the increase in anal penetration among gay men and the increase in disease among gay men.

A DIRECT correlation.

Not a sort of correlation, not a maybe correlation, but an absolute and direct correlation.

If you were to chart it, the line representing the increase in prevalence of anal and the line representing the increase in prevalence of disease would move upwards in lock step.

Here's what the analist Dr. Goldstone of GayHealth dot com says about anal and STDs:

STDs: Anal sex is the highest risk sex act that men who have sex with men can perform. Virtually every STD can pass between partners during anal sex, and for most, penetration isn't necessary and a condom may not protect you. STDs are harder to diagnose when they are inside your anal canal and not on your penis. STDs commonly passed during anal sex include: HIV, herpes simplex, gonorrhea, syphilis, molluscum contagiosum, crabs, human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis, and chlamydia[, and, now, LGV].

HIV Risk

Anal sex is the highest risk sex act two men can perform.

This is also true for a woman if she's the anal receptive partner with a man. Your risk increases dramatically in proportion to the number or partners you have and if your sex is unprotected (whether you are inserting or receiving). One medical study published in 1987 found that anal sex with one partner increased your chances of catching HIV by three times -- five or more partners increased it 18 times.

It was the rise in anal penetration which created the HIV epidemic.

Without anal penetration, HIV would have been literally powerless to affect gay men.

Don't believe me?

Read Gabriel Rotello's Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men -- you'll find it listed in the source notes for an anus is not a vagina.

HIV's been around a long time.

Certainly decades, and maybe centuries.

It took the epidemic of anal to create the epidemic of HIV.

That epidemic of anal killed my lover Brett and all of our friends.

Which is why I will never retreat in our battle to RE-marginalize anal penetration.

To send it back to the dark and malodorous fringe where it belongs.

Brett didn't grow up fantasizing about anal.

I know, because I know what his boyhood fantasies were.

They were Frot fantasies and Warrior fantasies and Frot Warrior fantasies -- just like mine.

But he had the misfortune to come out in 1977 -- two years into the great anal "sex" frenzy.

And he was, though not completely, acculturated into the dominant culture of anal penetration.

Acculturated.

Taught.

Instructed.

Pressured.

And coerced.

To do anal.

So he did.

Not often enough to kill his spirit, but enough to take his life.

Since its anally-vectored onset in the American gay community, HIV / AIDS has spread throughout the world.

20 million have died.

40 million are infected.

Why and for what?

Can anyone tell me?

Anal penetration isn't even sex.

There's a far better way for men to make love.

Natural.

Spontaneous.

Virtually risk-free.

And Masculine.

Masculine means "having qualities appropriate to a man."

Of course one can argue about what qualities are appropriate to a man.

But being passive isn't one of them.

Getting fucked up the butt isn't one of them.

Men are active, independent, equal, have a strong fighting spirit, and proud.

Proud to be men, proud of their manhood.

Which is phallic.

That's another quality appropriate to a man: his sexuality is expressed phallically.

Not anally.

Getting penetrated has never been appropriate to a man and never will be.

We're working to create an m2m world in which masculinity is prized, fidelity is honored, and sex is phallic, an expression of equality and love between men.

Analism is a culture of disease, death, and lies.

Most especially lies about what it means to be a man.

Ours is a culture of health, life, and truth.

Truth about sex, truth about health, and truth about men and men who love men.

When you read about exotic diseases like LGV, guys, and what today pass for common diseases like herpes and HPV, remember why they're loose in your community, remember who introduced them and how.

And resolve to never give up, never retreat, never stop until anal and analism have again been relegated to the shadows, and a man can once again love another man as a man, in the clear, clean, light of day.