email 2

I agree that the more we raise hell about this the better. The reason I'm so confused by this - and trust me, I am NOT easily confused or afraid of anything - is that I'm still relatively new to being with men, and am still trying to figure out the political issues involved. I thought that the only thing gay men had to worry about was pressure and discriminination from the outside world. I thought that once you entered the gay society everybody was pretty much united.

I know that sounds stupid, huh?

And it's ESPECIALLY confusing because I feel like I'm too gay for the straight world and too straight for the gay world.

I know, I know: sounds stupid, I know. But like I said, I'm relatively new at all of this.

I WILL say this: it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

email 3

The email you posted about gay men preferring to go to the gym than to learn self defense classes was stunning. Did that really happen? Were you joking? It amazes me that they would rather look good than protect themselves.

As I told you before, I'm one foot in the closet, one foot out, and still trying to figure things out. Bill, I just don't get what's the deal with gay men sometimes. They spend all this time trying to make themselves into greek, manly gods, then bend over and get fucked by the first decent looking guy that comes along. Why? That doesn't make any sense. First of all, I, for example, don't like "pretty boys." I had a REALLY attractive guy hitting on me a few months ago, but I resisted. Why? He wasn't my type. He was all pretty and fake-looking. Attractive? Yes. But in a shallow, superficial sort of way.

Hell, I'd prefer a REAL man, with a slight - or hell, heavy - beer gut than a person like that. A slightly heavy guy who FEELS like a man.

Also, I really, really liked your piece on whether or not gay men HAVE to be prosmiscuous. It's almost as if guys don't think they're gay UNLESS they sleep around. Where does that come from? Society? Where?

And I like to kiss. Why don't gay guys like to kiss? I don't get it?

Tell me this: do you think you'll eventually change people's minds about anal sex?

email 4

What I'm saying is, as I place one foot out of the closet, I see all the shallowness of gay life: the anal emphasis, the pretty boy syndrome, all the stuff we've talked about. And I wonder: Well, damn, is this ALL there is to being into men?

Now, I know what you're thinking: but look at all the guys on the web site. That's fine. And I agree. But I'm still, for example, having a hard time finding a guy in my area who is into frot. So what do I do? Do I just continue to hook up with guys, praying that they're "into" frot, and preaching to them the virtues of frot if they're not? Or do I simply jerk off, hoping and praying that I'll get somebody who is into frot? 'Cause I gotta tell you, dude, this random sex and prosmiscuity is SHITTY.

I'm sick of the lack of emotion. I'm sick of the lack of kissing. I'm sick of the lack of touching and feeling. I'm sick of the "cum-and-go" aspects of it. I'm sick of the impatience.

Where is the love? That's all I'm saying.

Do you watch the Show "Six Feet Under" on HBO? It's a great show about a family that owns a funeral home. One of the characters happens to be gay. When one of their employees finds out, he starts questioning the guy's manhood, etc. The gay guy looks right at the other guy and says, flat out: "I AM a man!"

I'll never forget that. EVER. Because it made me realize that, no matter who I have sex with, I'm STILL one thing: a man.

blk warrior

Re: MAKE LOVE - not fuck

4-18-2002

Salute Warriors

Reading the mail of blk warrior is just another confirmation for me that all this here, these great guys that post on these sites, all these issues and the gay frot warrior movement in general makes FUCKING SERIOUS DAMN SENSE.

Sorry about this kind of expression but an angry warrior is speaking here.

They tease us, they suppress us, they want to make idiots of us. But the day of change will come and with it the day of revenge.

Revenge, ohh sweet revenge ;)

Salute warriors ;)

Bill Weintraub

Re: MAKE LOVE - not fuck

4-19-2002

right on Warrior Greg dude

we're talking sense -- the analists are talking nonsense

i asked blk warrior to post these emails cause he's brought up so many important issues in them

and one reason for that, i think, is that, because he's in the process of coming out, he's still able to see gay male life as an outsider

and he sees and isn't afraid to question the absurdities -- for example, that guys will let you fuck them but not kiss them

that's one of the many world-turned-upside-down aspects of mainstream gay male life, where kissing is considered more intimate than fucking, and anal more pleasurable and more masculine (and some people even think safer!) than frot, and drag is fun, and drugs are cool, and being buffed is more important than being able to defend yourself

but for many men, as blk warrior says, the attitude and bitchiness and passionless but dangerous sex are all turn-offs

which they would be to any reasonable person

now i want to answer his question about the self-defense class story because i think it's an important one

first of all, the story is absolutely true

back in the late 70s and early 80s i was living in the Chelsea district of Manhattan

at that time it wasn't the gay haven it later became -- it was a working class neighborhood with a mix of people

and there were a lot of fag-bashings

activists responded in a number of ways -- by holding community meetings and putting together a telephone hotline so that people could report anti-gay crimes and meeting with the police and politicians

in addition, one guy -- a social worker and therapist named Lance Bradley who, sadly, died of AIDS in 87 -- went out and learned some karate and linked up with a women's group called Safety and Fitness Exchange, and together they created a "Self-Defense Course for Lesbians and Gay Men"

and it was brilliantly done -- a combination of martial arts and practical street-fighting techniques and group therapy, in which people could talk about how they felt about violence and about learning how to defend themselves -- which at the time was as important as the simple knowledge of how to throw a punch

my introduction to karate was through that group -- it's also where i met my lover -- and because i could see it was a good thing, i worked very hard to publicize and popularize it

without much success --

for two reasons, both of which are relevant to this club

the first was that, as i said in my earlier post, gay men thought it was more important to look good than to be able to defend themselves

most gay New Yorkers of that era were very closeted and very career-driven, they had a limited amount of work-out time, and they believed that being pumped and thus desirable to other men was crucial to their lives, those secret lives which revolved around The Saint and the St. Marks Baths and Fire Island -- where they did drugs and had a lot of anonymous anal "sex" with partners rated and chosen on a strict hierarchy of looks, age, race, and money

the second was that many believed it was the government's job to protect them -- specifically the police

well, i'd done some work with the police -- as it happens, there's someone else in this club who did far far more than i did, and he may want to come forward to talk about it -- and we did succeed in getting the police to pay more attention to anti-gay violence

but the fact of the matter was that the police had limited resources, and couldn't be everywhere at once

so the demands and expectations that gay men were making of the police, though perhaps politically legitimate, were logistically unrealistic and involved an abnegation of personal responsibility -- similar to what Warrior Black Lotus has talked about with AIDS in his post The Devaluation of Sex

in other words, guys were saying, i'm going to go to sleazy waterfront bars and backrooms very late at night, and the cops had better be there to protect me, cause i'm not going to learn how to protect myself

just as we now have a population of gay men saying i'm going to do drugs and bareback, and it's up to the government to spend money to find treatments when i get sick

so in both cases there was and is a self-destructive passivity, which childishly and masochistically puts one's fate in the hands of others

that passivity, which is a symptom of internalized self-hate, is to me the most striking characteristic of gay men -- it's something you almost never see in straight men, and it's no longer common among women either

but in fundamental areas of their lives, gay men still have it

so when blk warrior asks "Tell me this: do you think you'll eventually change people's minds about anal "sex"?" my answer is yes, provided that other guys -- which means you guys reading this post -- do their part

but that's a big if

cause in order to do your part, you have to overcome your gay passivity, and accept that it's your responsibility to inform other men about frot and anal, about the differences between them, and about why you love frot

and i mean INFORM -- not just hang in frot clubs hoping to get laid -- i mean getting on the net and posting on message boards and writing letters to your local gay and nongay papers and shows like Queer as Folk and coming out to ALL your friends as a man into frot

that's what's needed

and for that reason in this club i've tried to set out a series of very clear differences between frot and anal:

equality vs tops and bottoms

full body sex vs penis-anus sex

phallus-to-phallus sex vs penis-anus sex

safe sex vs dangerous sex

health vs disease

fidelity vs promiscuity

and

masculinity vs effeminacy

and that last is not a small point -- because part of being masculine is taking action to defend your life

while to be effeminate is to be a passive victim

and blk warrior recognizes that

in his last email to me, he said:

"I was reading over your Cockrub Warrior interview when I came across a paragraph that explains, I think, what a lot of people like me feel.

"You said:

"And that is an understandable distaste on the part of bi and straight men for what I call that parody of femininity that one sees most clearly in drag, but that comes out all the time in gay male life in bitchiness, attitude, and the use of she, her and girl to refer to other gay men. Those are among the most unpleasant and unattractive elements in gay male life, and if I were a straight man with a mild interest in sex with other men, or a bi curious guy, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near them."

"See? That's EXACTLY what I was trying to say before. I have one foot in and one foot out, then I see gay men wearing dresses and calling each other "bitch" and "girl." I've SEEN that.

"And that's not me. I don't go around calling friends "child" and "girlfriend." I am a man. Period."

And blk warrior is absolutely right to resist surrendering his masculine identity.

Once again, any reasonable man would do that -- cause it's destructive to lose your masculinity.

So we have the numbers and the arguments to change gay culture, but in order for that to happen more of you have to take back your masculinity and assert, publicly, your right to your kind of sex.

Which, as it happens, is a better, more pleasurable, more equitable, and healthier form of sex than that which is constantly being thrown in your face and forced down your throat and ultimately up your butt.

So we have right and truth on our side.

But while I've often said there's no ally more powerful than truth, neither right nor truth can fight for you.

Only you can do that.

Passivity and the closet destroyed the previous generation of gay men -- all those gay guys I knew in NYC who wouldn't learn self-defense didn't speak up about AIDS in time either -- so they died of a disease which was as violent and brutal as the worst fag-basher on earth.

But history needn't repeat itself.

It's your choice -- me and the other guys who've posted in here have given you the rhetorical weapons you need.

All you have to do is pick them up and use them.

warriordb

Re: MAKE LOVE - not fuck

04-21-2002

blk warrior, Bill and warriors. If I can offer a ray of hope. I've been chatting online much of the afternoon with a friend in the Washington, DC area. He and his partner have been together for 24 years. My friend is 52. His partner is also in his 50s. Theirs is a relationship that includes no anal. He says "NO" anal.

We talked about becoming elders in the gay community. He describes anal as "violent." He meant not only what it does to the anus itself but also what it has done to our culture.

He told me that his is really a relationship between equals. There are not tops/bottoms or any of those other things that get in the way of men forming healthy long lasting relationships.

I let him know that he is an inspiration. I hope to interview them some day and post their story. It is truly uplifting. I always feel better when I communicate with him.

DB

Bill Weintraub

Re: MAKE LOVE - not fuck

4-23-2002

thank you warrior db

warrior db is the author of Musings of a Black Gay Man into Frot

i never had any interest either in dominating or being dominated by my partner, and that's how it was with Brett -- we were equals who complemented each other without one ever attempting to dominate the other

and the sexual expression of that equality was Frot

when i think about our relationship, i've tried to imagine what it would have been like if i had been fucking him or he had been fucking me

but i can't

because it wouldn't have made any sense

fucking had nothing to do with who we were

cockrub was everything

today is the 19th anniversary of the day we exchanged rings

so it's a sad day, but it's also a day of remembering a wonderful person and a great love

a love that was expressed daily by rubbing cocks

when i jerked off last night, in honor of today, i remembered Brett and me dickfighting -- and the moment when, as the cockster says, fighting cocks changed to mating cocks

it's a great memory

ajmerritt

Re: MAKE LOVE - not fuck

5-23-2002

I have always liked rubbing, touching, kissing and holding. I am a very sensitive guy who hates being buttfucked. My feelings are this, when a guy asks me to do or be done, I tell him to "get a woman, I'm nobody's bitch!" My ex was like that, too. We were together for six gut-wrenching years and he hated rubbing together. So, I am single again and hope to find the one who loves what I love, being made love to and not someone's butt buddy.

AND