In my writings about the cultural domination of anal sex (Hyacinthine Love, Frot: The Next Sexual Revolution, Interview: Bill Weintraub -- Cockrub Warrior, The Anal Sex Debate at GayToday), I've put forward the idea that sexual acts cannot be separated from their cultural context, and that culture can, in effect, coerce people into sexual behaviors that are alien to their innermost natures.

The same is true of other behaviors exhibited by members of a culture or subculture.

For example, our culture believes that gay men are inherently promiscuous, inwardly and outwardly effeminate, and by nature submissive and cowardly.

And those are traits we often see in gay men. That's because it's very difficult, as men into frot well know, for members of a minority to escape the demoralizing effects of the constant propaganda of the majority. For that reason many American gay men, despite the overlay from the Gay Liberation and gay rights movements of a "gay is good" philosophy, internalize and display the self-loathing characteristics that American culture expects of them.

monogamous, masculine, and martial harmodius and aristogeiton lovers and tyrannicides

Interestingly though, we can plainly see that other cultures have had expectations of men involved in same-sex eroticism that are diametrically opposed to those of our culture, and that the men of those cultures responded accordingly.

Historically, for example, throughout warrior cultures world-wide, including those of the ancient Mediterranean world, men who were erotically bonded with other men were expected and found to be monogamous, masculine, and martial - traits that served the warrior ideal and promoted unity and ferocity in battle.

These qualities of m2m men were and are by no means limited to the peoples of the Near East or the early Europeans. They have been found among sub-Saharan African tribes, the medieval Japanese, and the men of New Guinea and Melanesia. And there are almost certainly more such cultures yet to be discovered, since native peoples quickly learned the violent prejudices of their European conquerors and acted swiftly to conceal behavior which might bring their societies further harm.

Despite the loss of historical and anthropological data at the hands of Christian fanatics in Europe and their colonizers and missionaries abroad, and despite the depredations of Islamic conquerors, it is still possible to see the broad outlines, and in some cases, such as the ancient Greeks or the 20th-century Sambia of Papua New Guinea, even intimate details of the functioning of m2m eroticism in warrior societies.

myth matters: chiron instructs the young achilles in the warrior arts

Among those details are both myths and true-life stories that illustrate the desired conduct of erotically-bonded men. Those myths and stories matter to men like ourselves because they have the potential to serve as role-models and supports for behavior, indeed an entire way of life, that may feel natural to us, yet is not only not encouraged but is often denigrated by our society and, as Warrior Rob points out, even by our peers.

For example, when I was a kid, I faced a terrible quandary. On the one hand, I knew I was "gay" - that is, sexually attracted to other boys. On the other, I knew I wasn't "gay" - that is, effeminate and stupid.

Since both my masculinity and my sexuality were intrinsic to me, and since there were simply no role models of boys or men like myself, there was no way my life could make sense to me. I could only conclude that I was not only odd, but unique: a masculine and combative male who desired other men. Since there were clearly no others like me, I decided - and it's interesting to see that Warrior Missouri came to the same conclusion - that I would have to be heterosexual.

I did have the suspicion, based solely on the art works I saw in the local museum, that at some time in the distant European past there may have been other men like me, but, like some inhabitant of Oceania in 1984, I had no way of confirming it. At the time, there were no books on ancient homosexuality. As a matter of fact, at that time, the 1950s, there was only one book on contemporary homosexuality, Donald Webster Cory's The Homosexual in America, and there was no way a middle-class child like myself could have come across a copy of it, since it was kept literally under lock and key by those librarians brave or foolhardy enough to have acquired it.

Ironically, had I been born 20 years earlier, I would probably have received a classical education, in which case I would have read, since they were the standard introductory Greek texts, the Anabasis and Memoirs of Xenophon, an Athenian exile and mercenary whose work is full of references to soldiers loving soldiers.

karate transformed my life

As it was, it took me years to puzzle these things out. And that's true of others in our club. For example, Warrior Patrick, despite an intense interest in boxing, didn't start to train seriously in that sport until he was in his mid-30s. Just as I didn't start to train in karate till I was 34 - although I'd wanted to box since I was a teenager. I didn't understand that I could be both gay and a fighter.

And yet once I did start to train, karate transformed my life.

The fact is that had I known all that I know now, my life would have been very different. Because I would have had mythological and historical models and supports for the way I wanted to live.

And people need those. All people do. One of the primary functions of myth is to move us beyond the bounds of our petty personal biographies into a realm of universal possibilities and truths. So all human cultures provide myths, and it's just not realistic to expect human beings to live, let alone flourish, without mythological support.

For that reason, in this section of the site, we're going to explore myths and true stories from warrior societies that celebrate heroic homosex.

We'll look at Gilgamesh, the world's first epic and its first great statement of the power of erotic bonds between warriors, and we'll see what lessons it offers us today.

gilgamesh
warrior love

We'll discover anew the world of Greek m2m eros, and understand its intimate connection to both the Greek warrior ideal and the strategic needs of Greek armies in the archaic, classical, and Hellenistic eras.

the greeks
a satyr arms a warrior

And we'll look at ourselves, the men of Cockrub Warriors, and get a clearer understanding of what the words phallic, masculine, and heroic mean for guys into fightin and frot at the dawn of the 21st century.

Because frot is not simply about sex. Frot carries with it a whole constellation of values about life and love that are crystal clear, values that make us who we are, and that express our very essence.

One last word warrior dudes:

Heroic Homosex is about guys into frot - those into slow and sensual, those into aggressive and combative, and those - like me and Warrior Andrew64 - into both. There's no inherent conflict between these styles of frot.

Because at the heart of both is the awesome and cosmic act of phallic mating, uniquely male, and uniquely ours.

AND

bill