Bill Weintraub

Re: to rub and grind and make face to face love

11-26-2008

Hey Steve,

Thank you for this wonderful post!

Let's take a look:

All I can say is wow!

I feel a real sense of relief having found your web site.

Steve, that's great!

I'm very glad you found us.

For years, my partner Andy and I have felt like we were outsiders....

Yep -- that's true for all of us.

We've all been ostracized -- and worse -- on the basis of a simple preference.

neither of us cares a lot for anal sex...we love to rub and grind and make face to face love.

Right.

And that speaks well of you.

Because "face to face love" -- is true love.

I was always afraid to date...everyone wants anal sex.

Yes.

What's important for you to understand, Steve, is that -- that wasn't always the case.

The emphasis on anal among gay-identified men is very recent.

When I came out in 1972, there was no emphasis on anal.

Steve, I address that issue in a number of articles -- you might want to take a look at the one titled Frot: The Next Sexual Revolution;

and the follow-up interview with Jack Nichols, a pioneering gay activist.

Also, Steve, in my reply to a recent post from Warrior Junior titled hate on frot, I talk about one of the more academic explorations of the sudden shift to anal penetration in the mid-1970s;

and that's Gabriel Rotello's groundbreaking 1997 book, Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men.

So: while most gay-identified males today are surprised if you tell them that "gay" life and sexuality didn't always center on anal penetration, the truth is that anal didn't become the majority practice among gay-identified men until the 1970s.

That in turn was what made possible the AIDS and other STD epidemics which have so ravaged the "gay male communities" of North America, Western Europe, and Australia.

Because, fact is, that prior to that shift, there was no difference between the health of gay-identified men and that of straight-identified men.

And Steve, we examine those health issues in many articles posted on the sites, including an anus is not a vagina, which is one of our Man2Man Alliance policy papers.

Moreover, we know that even today, the vast majority of "men who have sex with men" -- MSM -- rather than gay-identified males -- never do anal.

And we know that historically most Men didn't do anal either.

In the Western tradition of both the Hebrews and the Greeks, anal has always been forbidden.

That's something which we frequently discuss on our sites, and which is confirmed in any number of studies of the ancient Greeks, including J K Dover's 1978 Greek Homosexuality;

and a recent article by independent scholar Andrew Calimach exploring the myth of Zeus, King of the Gods, and his beloved mortal youth Ganymede --

in which Calimach states that

The comments of many [ancient Greek] writers illustrate another aspect of the role of the Zeus and Ganymede complex in the debate on male love: its employment as a vehicle for rejecting anal copulation in male love relationships, an ethic often formulated by the very proponents and practitioners of erotic and loving relations between males. While the philosophical foundation for chaste pederasty was laid by Plato in his dialogues Phaedrus and the Symposium, some early references suggest that its roots are older still. Allegedly, it was the law giver Lycurgus in the seventh century who, while encouraging Spartan men to love youths by calling it the noblest kind of education, at the same time prohibited [anal] intercourse with beloveds as the most shameful of acts (Xenophon, Lak. Pol.)

Not long thereafter, Aesop (Zeus and Shame) propounds the same morality in a fable featuring Zeus himself. As the story would have it, Zeus convinces Shame to take up residence in a man's rectum, and she agrees only on condition that Eros [male-male Love] not follow her there or else she will leave immediately.

Calimach is correct on all counts.

The Aesop fable to which he's referring can be found here:

Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)
528. ZEUS AND SHAME

After he had created people, Zeus immediately implanted in them all the possible human character traits, but he forgot about Shame. Since he didn't know how to get Shame inside the human body, he ordered her to go in from behind [that is, into the rectum]. At first Shame protested, considering Zeus's request to be beneath her dignity. When Zeus kept insisting, she said, 'All right, I will go in there, on the condition that if anything comes in there after me, I will leave immediately.' As a result, people who engage in sodomy have no sense of shame.

So the sense of the myth is to brand those who engage in "sodomy" -- anal penetration -- as shameless.

Not a good quality to the Greeks.

Here's more of Calimach:

[in the ancient Greek world,] the bulk of the iconography and much of the literature suggests that optimal relationships occupied the middle ground between those two extremes [of anal or chastity], being construed as essentially sexual, just not anal. This view is supported, for example, by such comments as those of Cicero, who asserted of the allegedly chaste Spartans that, "The Lacedaemonians, while they permit all things except outrage (stuprum, 'illicit intercourse,' likely referring here to anal intercourse) in the love of youths, certainly distinguish the forbidden by a thin wall of partition from the sanctioned, for they allow embraces and a common couch to lovers."

Adds Calimach:

Fondling and frottage are the practices most widely depicted on ceramic vases.

He's correct:

Calimach then points out that

In the West, Platonic values were revived by the Victorian culture of male love -- a culture steeped in the Classics -- and by its leaders, men like William Johnson-Cory, Oscar Wilde and André Gide, who publicly pressed for the freedom of males to love each other, and privately exercised the same sexual morality that characterized the Greek male love tradition at its height. In the same spirit, the early homosexual rights campaigner, John Addington Symonds labeled as "vicious" male love that consummated itself in anal copulation.

This ethos persisted into the middle of the last century. As late as the 1950s, more than 80 percent of English men involved in male love relationships reported not practicing anal intercourse with their lovers (Hyde, 1970, pp. 6-7).

[Guys: Calimach's article is in print but not yet online; those who have access to a university library can find it here:
The Exquisite Corpse of Ganymede: A Cursory Overview of an Ancient Gender Studies Discourse, by Andrew Calimach. THYMOS: Journal of Boyhood Studies, Vol. 1 No. 2, 117-137.]

So -- historically, cross-culturally, and even here in America, anal has always been a rare and denigrated practice.

And properly so.

Anal became prominent in our culture, Steve, as the idea took hold among the public of the categories of sexual orientation as fixed and immutable.

That in turn is a result of an historical process we call heterosexualization, a process in which same-gender spaces and activities are steadily made mixed-gender;

while affection, intimacy, sex, and Love between Men is increasingly ghettoized, shunted into a "homosexual space" which is dominated by anally-receptive gay-identified males.

Steve, we talk about that process in a number of articles, starting with The Power of the Masculine and continuing through posts like Warriorhood and Male Intimacy and Agoge III: The Longing for Masculinity.

I hope you'll take a look at some of those -- because they'll help you better understand your present situation.

Andy was the first guy I met who knew what I wanted and needed.

Steve, I'm glad you and Andy found each other.

He has experienced the same feelings as I.

Of course.

Its funny, a few years ago we took a weekend trip with another couple and shared a motel room to save money. We agreed it was Ok to have sex with our partners when we shared the room....our lovemaking seemed caring and loving...

Yes.

their anal antics were the opposite...

That's correct.

yet they laughed at us the rest of the trip because we were afraid to fuck...as they put it.

Right.

From my point of view, Steve, that's truly infuriating.

Steve, if we dare to say there's pressure and coercion in the gay community to do anal -- the people we call analists go berserk.

They go ballistic any time anyone so much as hints that all is not peachy keen in their shit-stained buttfuck world.

But there is pressure and coercion.

A lot of pressure and a lot of coercion.

And your anecdote is just one of the literally thousands which are posted on our sites.

Plus -- there are academic studies, such as this one:

Gay men as victims of nonconsensual sex

Abstract

Incidents of nonconsensual sexual activity among 930 homosexually active men living in England and Wales are analyzed. Of these men, 27.6% said they had been sexually assaulted or had sex against their will at some point in their lives; one third had been forced into sexual activity (usually anal intercourse) by men with whom they had previously had, or were currently having, consensual sexual activity. The contention that male rape is usually committed by heterosexually identified men, primarily as an expression of power and control, is not supported. Recognition that gay men rape other gay men is needed, both by the gay community and support services for victims.

Key words sexual assault - male rape - gay men - sexual behavior

"The contention that male rape is usually committed by heterosexually identified men, primarily as an expression of power and control, is not supported. Recognition that gay men rape other gay men is needed, both by the gay community and support services for victims."

"gay men rape other gay men"

No kidding.

What the study is talking about is date rape.

And look at the numbers:

one third had been forced into sexual activity (usually anal intercourse) by men with whom they had previously had, or were currently having, consensual sexual activity.

Where's the outrage in the "gay male community" about this level of gay-on-gay rape?

Where is it?

If one third of lesbians had been date-raped by their girlfriends -- we'd hear about it.

Moreover, if anal penetration is so fabulous for the "receptive partner," why do the "tops" so often have to resort to rape?

Shouldn't all those victims have been eagerly offering their butts for fucking?

If they weren't, why not?

These are the ugly truths, Steve, that lie behind the sort of taunting you and Andy had to endure from your "gay male" "friends" -- who no doubt, if asked, would assure you that they "honor diversity" and that "it's all sex and it's all good."

Bullshit.

Here's another ugly truth:

To date, we've lost over 400,000 gay-identified American males to an anally-vectored disease.

Not fifty years ago and not thirty years ago.

Fact is, while the dying peaked in 1993, it goes on to this very day.

In 2006 we lost more than 14,000 Americans to HIV / AIDS.

In the meantime, there are now more than 1.2 million Americans infected with HIV --

including 600,000 gay-identified males.

ALL of whom were infected via anal.

95% of whom are co-infected with HPV.

While 57% of HIV negative gay-identified males are infected with HPV.

Chin-Hong PV et al. Age-specific prevalence of anal human papillomavirus infection in HIV-negative sexually active men who have sex with men: the EXPLORE study. J Infect Dis 190 (on-line edition), 2004

How did they get infected?

In multivariate analysis the investigators found that the only factor with a statistically significant association with HPV infection was receptive sexual intercourse in the previous six months (p < 0. 0001).

Anal.

They got infected through anal.

It's the anal.

All of those guys, whether HIV negative or positive, are at HIGH RISK for anal cancer.

As they are for a host of other diseases transmitted via anal penetration and other forms of "assplay."

Yet Steve and Andy's "friends" want them to do anal.

What incredible folly!

Committed by the partisans of an allegedly un-orthodox sexual subculture -- in the name of "sexual" orthodoxy.

And guys, for more discussion of this sort of analist bullshit, ck out Warrior Scott's anal action, ugh!.

Here's Steve:

Its just a relief to find other guys are like minded.

I understand.

We are like-minded, Steve, and you and Andy are now among friends.

Thanks

Steve, you're very welcome.

Again, I'm glad you found us.

And I thank you for your willingness to share your story with your fellow Men, your fellow Warriors, on this board, where, just as you've been helped, it will now help and empower and strengthen thousands --

thousands of your fellow Men who will then be your Warrior brothers.

And guys, I urge and implore all of you, please help us make sure that our sites are here for the next guy or guys like Steve and Andy who need to hear our message --

and make sure that we reach millions more --

by DONATING.

It's vital that you do that.

We're entirely donor-supported.

We carry no advertising and charge no fees.

Which means we're dependent on the good will of guys like yourself.

Basically, our sites are here for you today because some other guy contributed last week or last month or last year.

Far too few of you ever return that favor.

Which means that right now a relative handful of people are keeping the sites alive.

I know that some of you are concerned about the economy -- and Warrior Brian Hulme is going to have more to say about that in an upcoming post.

As will I.

Fact is, though, that for months we've been hearing about how greedy and selfish people got us into our present economic mess.

Yet -- when you don't donate -- when you come here and benefit from the sites and then piggishly keep your wallet in your pocket -- aren't you being greedy and selfish too?

Aren't you expecting and indeed demanding something for nothing -- when everything you've ever experienced in life tells you -- there is no free lunch, that everything has to be paid for?

It does.

But here's the good news:

"Many hands make light the work."

A donation of just $10 or $20 once a month -- which you can easily schedule using our online service -- will go a long, long way towards insuring that we continue to reach guys like Steve and Andy.

And -- YOU.

How many times have you been "laughed at" -- as Steve and Andy were -- because you wouldn't engage in the dirty, dangerous, and inherently degrading act of anal penetration?

How many times have you been told that you're "immature" -- or "psychologically incomplete" -- or "afraid" -- because you won't stick your dick in a hole full of shit?

Or expose yourself to HIV and hepatitis C and syphilis and gonorrhea and LGV?

Or degrade your lover -- and your love -- by crudely and cruelly fucking him in his ass?

How many times have you been mocked because you choose to make Love to a Man as a Man -- face to face, heart to heart, and phallus to phallus?

How many times have you been jeered at and criticized for saying that you like being a Man, that you like being Masculine, that you like Manliness?

How many times have you heard

Get on your knees bitch and have some fun --

followed by sentiments like these

A nice hairy asshole just asks to get licked. For the connoisseur it is a delicacy in its own right. But it can also be a good lead-in to some more in-depth anal fun.

There are still people who think that an ass is just something to sit on or shit through. Fortunately most of us know better. Butt fucking is a favorite pastime for many men.

How much of that analist poison do you have to have in your life and hear over and over and over again --

before you finally decide to act?

And if you're straight-identified, how many times have you been told that real men don't Love other Men?

How many times have you heard that?

And how much damage has it done in your life?

The AP reported this week that that creep Ted Haggard is working to "rehabilitate" himself and restore his "ministry":

Disgraced pastor returns, as Christian businessman

By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion Writer

11/23/08

Earlier this month, a guest took the pulpit at Open Bible Fellowship in Morrison, Ill., a 350-member church surrounded by cornfields. The speaker was an insurance salesman from Colorado named Ted Haggard.

The former superstar pastor, disgraced two years ago in a sex-and-drugs scandal, had returned -- this time as a Christian businessman preaching a message that was equal parts contrition and defiance. Haggard linked his fall to being molested in second grade and apologized again.

His two sermons were posted, fleetingly, on Haggard's Web site under one word: "Alive!"

While his exact plans remain unclear, Haggard is unmistakably making himself a public figure again, nine months after his former church said he walked away from an oversight process meant to restore him.

The man who confessed to being a "a deceiver and a liar" is asking for another hearing, finding encouragement from a loyal circle of supporters ...

This is what that ghoul is going to do:

He's going to continue to blaspheme against the Holy and Natural Love of Man for Man.

He's going to say it's a disease, the result of molestation -- which is what he's done for years.

He's going to continue to play people of Faith for suckers, manipulating their piety for personal gain, for money and for power.

Above all, power.

That's what he'll do.

And who'll be hurt by what he does?

YOU!

YOU!

YOU!

FIGHT BACK.

The analist ghouls who taunt guys like Steve and Andy --

and the religious right creeps like Haggard --

are cut from the same cloth.

They hate Men, they hate Masculinity, they hate Manliness.

The idea that two Men can make Love as Men, phallus against phallus, matching their hard cocks against each other, passionately rubbing and grinding their way to the bliss of shared and sacred Male orgasm --

from Phallic Battle to Phallic Bond, to the Holy Sacrament of Frot, to that moment when, as Mart Finn has said, "fighting cocks become mating cocks" --

cocks pulsing and throbbing together, shooting their sacred seething semen into the arena created by your clasped bodies to pool and mix and merge among the muscles of your pecs and abs --

to know that two Men can Love each other as Men --

is anathema to them.

They fear the Power of the Masculine, and they fear that power all the more when it's multiplied and amplified by the Love of TWO MEN.

That's the truth.

And because they fear that power, they're your enemies.

And they'll pursue you, and taunt you, and make your life, your one sweet precious life, miserable --

and they will if they can, prevent you from ever loving another Man again.

Because that's what they're against and that's what they fear:

The True and Natural Love of Man for Man.

And if you have that Love they'll seek to destroy it.

Steve and Andy were lucky enough to find each other.

But guess what?

I found Brett, and he was taken from me, RIPPED from me by the life-devouring machine of analism, which like Moloch, is only happy when it's killing.

When it's eating lives.

FIGHT BACK.

$10 per month -- or $20 -- will do it.

And don't tell me that you can't afford $10 -- because you can.

We are your bulwark.

We are your first and best defense.

Every time guys like Steve and Andy find the site and join this Alliance --

you grow stronger.

But the opposite is true too.

When guys don't find us --

when our numbers don't increase --

when all you hear are the Haggards and the buttqueens howling in the blasted and soulless wilderness to which they've condemned you --

you're weakened bro.

You're hurt by that.

Get hurt enough -- and that hurt will turn fatal -- I guarantee it.

Don't let that happen.

You deserve -- you have the fundamental human right -- to Live and Love.

As a Man.

As Men.

As Steve says -- simply and truly:

Like a Man.

Like Men.

Two equally strong and noble beings coming and cumming together at last.

That's your right.

Don't let it be taken from you.

FIGHT BACK.

SAVE YOUR LIFE.

Bill Weintraub

November 26, 2008

© All material Copyright 2008 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.