Bill Weintraub

Non-Homosexual Cock Fighting?

12-21-2002

recently a guy calling himself Riff wrote to me, wanting to post under the above heading

Riff was concerned because, he said, when still a teenager, he'd been manipulated by an attractive girl into a competitive cockfight with another boy

the deal was that the winner would get a blow-job from the girl, who would of course first get to watch a sexfight which she'd arranged

after a vigorous contest of dick slapping, cockhead ramming, and shaft-rubbing (all of which Riff remembered in vivid detail), Riff won by spearing the other kid's balls

the loser limped away, while the girl reneged on the blow job and disappeared

years later, and much like Pete who posted about his cockfight with Hugo, Riff was still obsessed with what happened, and though he describes himself as happily married, and "not at all gay," he still wonders why he was so aroused by both the cockfight and his victory

and whether, if he had another cockfight, he'd be similarly aroused

what was striking to me in his letter was how determined he was, not unlike the author of the hardest i've ever been , to claim that neither he nor the experience were gay or homosexual; but Riff went further, for, he said, a true cockfight was always about a woman, never about two men, that it had nothing to do with male bonding, or rubbing pecs, or any other "gay stuff," and so wasn't homosexual -- in fact, he calls what happened and what he wants to do again "hetrosexual [sic] sexfighting"

i wrote back to him to re-assure him that there was nothing "wrong" with him for having enjoyed and been sexually aroused by a cockfight

but i also told him that what had happened clearly had a very large homosexual element, and that his concern to deny that element signaled strong but suppressed homosexual desires within himself

since i know there are other guys out there who worry about the same-sex erotic or "homosexual" aspect of cockfighting, i want to address the issue at more length, and look at the question of whether a same-sex erotic experience can properly or usefully be characterized as non-homosexual or heterosexual, and one which has nothing to do with friendship or male bonding, but is simply pure competition

first of all, Riff's fantasy -- guys cockfighting to win sex from a woman -- while often found among str8- and bi-identified guys, is one that many "gay men" find hot too

which tells us that this is a fantasy *common to men who have sex with men, regardless of how they self-identify*

in addition, while i'm very supportive on the site of men who say "i'm str8 but i like to go cock2cock with my bud," i don't support the notion that cockfighting or cockrubbing is not homosexual

the aroused genitals are the generators of erotic energy, and if two men are cock fighting, they're engaged in a same-sex erotic activity

which by definition is "homo" -- that is "same" -- sexual

that doesn't mean that the participants themselves are "homosexuals" or "gay men"

but what they're doing is same-sex sex

and that was without question what happened between Pete and Hugo -- Pete has told me that both guys recognized there was a sexual attraction between them; and of course Pete later became very actively bi-sexual

in general, i don't think anyone is well-served by the idea that sex isn't sex

for example, many feminists have long claimed that rape isn't sex, that it's a form of violence and male social control

i don't agree

for while it may well be that in many circumstances rape is an assertion of male control of women, it's still sex

not good sex, not socially desirable sex, but still sex

and to redefine it as something else is not helpful -- it blinds us to the reason that most men rape -- which is to have reproductive opportunities -- that is, sex -- with women whom they believe, usually correctly, they couldn't obtain through courtship

please note that i'm not saying that rape is okay; what i'm saying is that most men who rape do so for sex, and the violence is secondary to the sex

similarly, str8-identified men who cockfight, even if the stated goal of the "fight" isn't sex with another man but to win sex with a woman, are still having sex with each other -- they're having genital-genital contact, and re-packaging it or r-defining it as a form of violence serves only to obscure their same-sex desires

and there's no reason to do that, and i don't want to make it easier for guys to redefine their desires in that way, cause i don't think it's good for them

far better for them to be able to say, i'm not gay but i really get off on cockfighting

and both admitting and accepting that part of the thrill is sexual

because after all, if all you're really after is sex with a woman, you don't need a cockfight first

the only purpose of the cockfight is to have a *sexual* contest with another man

and while you may choose to emphasize the contest, there's no escaping the sex

so what i see among some str8-identified men is an understandable (to me) reluctance to do anything which might associate themselves with anal penetration, which is both dangerous and degrading

but one of the primary points we're making on this site is that a man can have phallus-to-phallus sex with another man without either of them surrendering their masculinity

so: a guy can have sex with another guy without being "gay" -- but to pretend that cockfights aren't sex is to deny the reality of male bisexuality, about which no one need be ashamed

finally, i want to clarify that it was never my intention, with either Heroic Homosex or Cockrub Warriors, to create a sexual demi-monde of men into cock fighting, no matter how they self-define

rather, it's the goal and oft-stated aim of Heroic Homosex and Cockrub Warriors to move the culture of men who have sex with men away from one of anal promiscuity and effeminacy and toward one of phallic monogamy and masculinity

so for the men of this site, combative cockrubbing or cockfights are tangential -- as the Cockster says, what interests us is the moment when fighting cocks become mating cocks

and that's why we speak of phallic mating -- it's meant to be and is a form of male bonding -- and a very powerful form at that

so while many of us -- gay, str8, or bi -- are into the aggressive aspects of masculinity and sex, we're also looking for a bond with another man, which may take the form of friendship or of love or of both

and that bond is the reason