Hey Bill.

I just wanted to tell you that your site is wonderful and very sexy, however I am very concerned about your claim that frot does not put people at risk of STD's. Cock on cock sex most likely won't lead to HIV or hepatitis infections, ( in theory, couldn't fluids come into contact with the mouth and anus, therefore leading to infection?) however, participants are in just as much danger of contracting other STD's, such as HPV and Chlamidia. I hope that you will research this and put this information on your site, as you would not want to put anyone, including yourself, at risk of preventable infections.

Thank You,

Emily

Dear Emily

Thank you for writing to me, but I'd like to know who you are.

Men into anal constantly make the claim that all sex is equally risky.

That's utter nonsense.

For more than a dozen years, I had a very passionate skin-on-skin frottage relationship with my lover who died of AIDS.

In our first years together, HIV had not even been discovered, so we had no way of knowing that he was either infected, or infectious.

He came on my skin, specifically my genitals, repeatedly, as I did on his, and we frequently massaged the ejaculate into our skin.

We rarely used lubricant -- so that though I was not so foolish as to let him or anyone ejaculate into an open wound, I have no doubt that my skin was frequently abraded when his HIV-laden cum made contact with it.

Despite that repeated exposure to HIV, I remained and am to this day HIV negative.

My story can be repeated by literally tens of thousands of men into frottage who lost lovers and other partners to AIDS.

Furthermore, I've never had an STD -- never, not ever.

That's despite living and being sexually active in Boston, New York City, and San Francisco, from 1972 to the year 2000, including annual stints in the 1980s on Fire Island, where I frequented the notorious "Meat Rack."

It's not mysterious, Emily. There is a huge difference between unbroken skin and the lining of the anus.

The anus is very vulnerable to infection, and is a vector for EVERY STD known.

Not true for frottage -- not even close.

So I've become really disgusted by these ridiculous and specious comparisons between anal and frot, which I see more and more of in my inbox as our campaign frightens more and more men anxious to protect their anal privileges.

The fact of the matter is that we lost over 450,000 bi and gay men in the US alone not to frottage, but to diseases spread anally.

That's the fact.

Frottage has never killed anybody.

But anal is deadly.

So I suggest that before you send me any more letters, you check your facts, and don't tell me to check mine.

Furthermore, we have already taken a very strong stand against promiscuity on our Heroic Homosex site.

If you visit our cyber-dating board, Frot Club, you'll see a notice in BIG RED LETTERS that reads:

HEROICHOMOSEX DOES NOT ENDORSE PROMISCUITY

and goes on to warn that if men into frot become as promiscuous as men into anal, frot will become a vector for disease.

The truth of the matter is, however, that I don't know that is the case: unbroken skin is unbroken skin -- it's a formidable barrier to infection, and the scenarios that you present -- of errant fluids coming into contact with the mouth or anus -- are frankly absurd.

You would do well to remember that it's a basic maxim of science that a change in quantity produces a change in quality.

So it matters how much of a pathogen your body receives. When men bareback, their bodies get a huge, concentrated dose of HIV and any other pathogen that may be present in their partner's body forcibly injected into the confined space and very vulnerable tissues of the anus, which have already been torn by the action of being penetrated and repeatedly rammed.

There is nothing even remotely comparable which happens when two men rub cocks. NOTHING.

We have however, so as to be super safe on the site, not allowed any promotion of docking -- which it seems to me might, maybe, possibly, very remotely, pose some risk.

In addition, I have published (on 365Gay.com, one of the web's largest LGBT news sources) an article specifically attacking promiscuity: "Do Gay Men Have to be Promiscuous?"

If it's not still up on their site you can find it on mine at http://www.man2manalliance.org/crw/frot/365promiscuity.html

So we've done our part and will continue to do our part on my sites to encourage monogamy and discourage promiscuity.

And I would do more if the gay media establishment was not so unalterably opposed to publishing my views.

However I want to say to you that I believe that what you and people like you are doing is irresponsible in the extreme.

By sounding these false alarms, you are telling men who might be considering abandoning anal that it really doesn't matter, that if you're gay you're going to die anyway.

THAT IS A LIE.

Were the gay male population of the US to switch today from anal sex to frottage, the STD rate would plummet.

HIV and hepatitis would cease to be sexually transmitted diseases among gay men.

As would syphilis and gonorrhea and a host of minor ills.

As to HPV, there have already been studies published telling us that anally receptive men, so-called bottoms, have a far higher rate of HPV infection than do other gay men.

And I would be very surprised if men who've been exclusively into frot or JO carry HPV in numbers greater than heterosexual men.

BECAUSE WHAT WE DO DOES NOT TRANSMIT DISEASE.

That is why we have survived to become the elders of this community -- and not our beloved dead.

So -- if you've any special expertise in this area, I'd be curious to know what it is.

Otherwise, instead of wasting my time and yours, I suggest you write to gay.com/planetout.com/advocate.com/POZ asking them why they will not either accept an op-ed from me or, on their own, assign a reporter to do a story on the frottage movement.

Because we have a solution to the continuing high rates of HIV infection and drug use among gay men.

Nobody else does.

Including you.

Which is why, despite the obstinate and obdurate refusal of the gay male establishment to question the cultural domination of anal penetration, we will continue to do so, and we will steadily erode its privileged status among gay and bisexual men, and WE WILL NOT STOP until anal penetration has been exposed and widely recognized for what it is: a dangerous and deadly illusion.

Sincerely,

Bill Weintraub

PS

bill

Re:

here's Emily's response, followed by my response to her:

Bill:

I am sorry if you thought that I was criticizing the movement of frot. I find the movement absolutely wonderful. I have often questioned the equality and intense bonding that seem to be missing from the act of anal sex. As a heterosexual female I also question whether those are even present in the ultimate way in my relationships. I am not qualified to testify to the inherent dangers of any sexual behavior. However, I do have many friends (homo and hetero) who have contracted STD's of the less deadly variety...HPV, crabs, chlamidia, and others. Obviously promiscuity leads to greater chances of STD infections. I do have a friend who received HPV in what she thought was a monagamous relationship...I am glad that you have approached the topic of promiscuity in gay men, however, to be realistic, this behavior will continue at some level (just as it is alive and well in the heterosexual world). This acknowlegement is just that. This movement should go on. It IS important! . It WILL change and save lives. I was merely talking about one page where you seem to make the claim that no STD's can be given through the act of frot itself. You are right that all sexual acts don't carry equal risks...and to make that point is so important...but you need to say that there is some chance, just for the sake of the truth. I do not believe at all that gay men will die. I do believe that frot is a wonderful solution. I do believe that when you say the numbers of gay men who contract HPV from frot are fewer, more like those numbers in hetero men. The numbers of hetero men with HPV are large. I believe that it is better to risk getting HPV than risk getting HIV. One kills. The other does not. However, they are both STD's, they both can be transmitted through sexual contact. Please do not be so angry with me. I support you. I hope that you welcome questions and concerns. I know that you have quite a battle to fight to give this movement credibility. I want to enable you, however I can. I can only imagine some of the hateful mail you have received. I am a supporter. I saw your page because one of my closest gay friends sent it to me...he thought it was pretty cool too.

Namaste.

Emily

Dear Emily,

I appreciate that you are a supporter of our work and your willingness to engage with me.

And I'm glad your friend likes our site.

What I ask you to understand is that we are engaged in what I regard as a life-or-death struggle with the analists, and that they do not play fair.

And as I said in my last letter, one of their favorite ploys is to claim that all sex is risky and anal no more risky than frot.

For a good example of this sort of propaganda, read The Anal Sex Debate at GayToday: http://www.heroichomosex.org/crw/frot/anal.html

In it you will hear Teddy Snyder making the most outrageous statements about anal and risk imaginable.

And, it is people like Snyder who control the debate -- as you'll see if you read the article, he works in the mainstream media.

And he lies to score points.

Now -- we have warnings against promiscuity spread throughout the site, and EVERYTHING I write -- fiction or non -- emphasizes romance and life-long attachments.

And it is one of my goals to change m2m culture from one of promiscuity to one of emotional and physical loyalty -- and I believe that change will come.

In the meantime, as a seasoned activist, I will not for one moment give my opponents a weapon to use against me -- particularly one that has no validity.

I have not seen -- and given the derogation of frot I don't think it's likely that we will see anytime soon -- a single unbiased, reliable study linking frottage with any STD.

I have seen some anecdotal reports in gay health advice columns, but those reports are meaningless -- no one knows for certain what the behavior of the people writing those letters has been.

In fact, we have no way of knowing whether the letters are genuine or simply invented by the advice columnist to fill space.

Indeed, when I queried gayhealth.com, which is in my view a nest of analists, about their lack of a page on frot back in January, they said that since there were very few health concerns with frot and very few questions raised about frot, they saw no need for a page.

The same can't be said of anal. Gayhealth.com is a site devoted almost exclusively to, on the one hand, extolling anal sex, including giving detailed advice on how to have anal (including specifically how to get past the pain of anal -- which is a warning sign of possible damage to the tissues of the anus) and, on the other, cleaning up the messes anal produces.

And there are innumerable scientific studies linking anal sex to every STD and a host of other ills.

So -- my position is this: promiscuity is a bad idea for most people both psychologically and spiritually, and is clearly dangerous physically.

BUT -- until I see a credible study telling us just what the risks for men who practice frottage exclusively are, my view is that frottage is no more dangerous than any other skin on skin contact -- such as shaking hands.

And I mean it.

You can't live life in a bubble. But you can assess risk. Most people shake hands -- even though that's how the common cold is passed, and, possibly, other, more sinister viruses that cause more serious diseases, such as cancer.

But that's a shared risk we all assume as part of our (in this case European) human community, and we understand that the handshake confers a number of positive social benefits.

Anal penetration is a different matter entirely.

We know for a fact that a series of deadly diseases are transmitted through anal, and that those diseases flourish because of the anatomy and function of the anus as an organ of elimination.

Further, the role of anal penetration in the m2m community is not a positive one.

Though some men may claim to experience feelings of intimacy through anal, the fact remains that, as gayhealth.com itself has said and I continue to stress, the anus is not a vagina, and that the pleasure the bottom experiences is psychological -- that is, imaginary.

Further, anal penetration perpetuates the division of gay men into tops and bottoms, studs and queens, males and pseudo-females, butches and bitches.

If you go to a gay sex chat room, and lurk a bit, you will hear men using extremely self-derogating lanquage to describe themselves: bottom boy, mancunt, bottom bitch, pussy boy, etc.

That is not psychologically healthy -- not at all.

And, because anal is painful for the bottom, men use drugs to get past the pain.

This is not a small point -- anal penetration is a major source of drug use in the gay male community.

So the differences between frot and anal are stark:

Frot emphasizes a healthy, non-macho, masculinity for both men and offers sexual equality and an intensely intimate form of bonding for its partners.

And it's genital-to-genital sex -- just like penile-vaginal/clitoral sex -- so that it's as highly pleasurable for BOTH partners as any sex act can be.

And there's been NO demonstrated risk of disease from frot, and should that risk exist, it must be extremely low -- since people like me and Chuck Tarver and everyone else on the site don't have any sexually transmitted diseases, at least not transmitted through frot. We have several people who developed HIV through unwanted anal sex -- but no one's complained about coerced to do frot and coming down with a fatal disease.

And no one has come forward on my site Emily, to say, I got x y or z through frottage -- it just hasn't happened.

The risks from anal, on the other hand, are enormous -- and very well-documented.

And anal is part of a patriarchal structuring of gay male society that perpetuates homophobia.

Despite those two facts, and facts they are, the gay male establishment will brook NO criticism of anal --

Instead, what the gay media has been doing is painting a picture of a happy and contented LGBT community in which we all get along gloriously and are united in our opposition to our neanderthal fundamentalist opponents

That's a lie.

Men into anal are extremely hostile towards and intolerant of men into frottage, and they use coercion and pressure to attempt to force guys into frot to have anal "sex," and where they are in control of the gay media -- which is almost everywhere -- they CENSOR opposing views.

That includes 365Gay, which was so upset by our exercise in participatory democracy on their message board that they deleted all our posts, and then deleted the board itself -- permanently.

And in the meantime, men continue to get infected with HIV and other anally-transmitted diseases, they are forced to fit the procrustean beds of top or bottom, and guys who protest are labeled crackpots and immature and effectively forced from the community.

So -- if you would like to help us, what you can best do is spread the word -- tell your friends -- post on message boards with our URL: http://man2manalliance.org/

And write the media -- gay and straight -- saying you know that the identification of gay with anal is false, and asking why there are no reports about the many men-who-have-sex-with-men who do not have anal sex.

That's what you can do to help, and I'd welcome you in the fight.

But I will not post spurious warnings on the site about health risks from frot when I do not know for a fact that any exist.

I will continue to encourage men to be prudent and monogamous. But until I see a scientific and clearly unbiased study of the health risks posed by frottage, and comparing them to those posed by anal, so far as I am concerned, none of the former exist.

The analists cannot have it both ways -- that anal isn't dangerous, and everything's dangerous anyway.

That's not true. Anal is dangerous -- it has been proven so.

Frot isn't.

Once again, I appreciate your willingness to engage with me, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site. I've just reworked many of the pages of Warriors Speak, and they're all excellent, as are the posts on our new Personal Stories board.

In any case, I hope I don't sound too harsh. But I am an advocate for a group of men who have been treated very badly while the perpetrators take an entire culture to hell in a handbasket.

That is going to stop.

Best regards,

Bill Weintraub

and remember warrior dudes

Jon (screenusnomus@aol.com)

Re:

4-16-2002

Bill,

Excellent discussion! Thanks. It's so good, I'm saving it for future reference and sharing.

One thing I will note to you tho: While I avoid anal personally, and restrict myself to either frot or mutual JO, I have on more than one occasion come home with crabs. I'm quite disgusted by these critters and wish there were an easier way to deal with them other than the standard body shampoo and such.

But, that is one problem that you can't get away from EVEN tho you are exclusively doing Frot.

Of course the answer would be a monogamous relationship. But one has to kiss a lot of frogs before finding your prince. And some of these frogs come with their own supply of "treats" I guess.

Short of shampooing down after EVERY sexual encounter, I know of no other way to be free of these PESTS!

If you have anything to add to my thoughts, I'd be happy to get them.

Otherwise, thank you SO much for taking the lead in your mission!

Hugz,

bill

Re:

4-16-2002

hey warrior jon

thank you for your kind words and good thoughts

what's really going on here is that the analists are trying to change the definition of safe or safer sex

the terms "safe sex" and "safer sex" were coined to describe sexual practices that protected you or put you at very low risk for HIV -- a fatal disease

and by that definition skin-on-skin frottage is absolutely safe -- as it is for hepatitis, syphilis, and gonorrhea

while anal is absolutely deadly

given that inconvenient fact, the buttfuck boyz have decided to expand the definition of safe to everything -- including, i have no doubt, the common cold

by doing that, they can say that everything's risky, and frot is no safer than anal

but no matter how they try to cut it, frot is safe, anal's not

and before i will say that frot puts you at risk for anything, i want to see scientific studies, tracking large numbers of men, that tell us whether a statistically significant number of them have ever gotten anything (excluding crabs) from frot

so that's not just one or two guys

for example, in the early days of the epidemic, it was feared that caregivers would contract HIV

in point of fact, very few caregivers developed the disease, despite being around it, in cases like my own, 24 hours a day for years

so though a few caregivers sero-converted, from a scientific standpoint being a caregiver does not put you at risk for AIDS

now Emily's concerned about HPV

well, i'd like to know what percentage of men who've confined their practice to JO and frot have HPV

the numbers might well be even lower than for heterosexual men

but until there's a study, we have no way of knowing

[as of 2005, we know what the numbers are for ANALLY-RECEPTIVE men, and they're horrendous:

95% of HIV+ gay men are infected with anal HPV

57% of HIV negative gay men who are anally receptive are infected with HPV

the authoritative study states that being anally receptive is the KEY RISK BEHAVIOR for anal HPV infection]

regarding crabs: you should ask your doctor

some of those shampoos, particularly the over-the-counter kind, are pretty harsh, and over-using them might harm your skin, which, in terms of STD prevention, would be counter-productive

cause short of monogamy, if you're doing frot and JO, keeping your skin healthy is your best defense against STDs

Joe Kramer, who for much of his career taught a form of group masturbation, told Salon.com in an interview that he'd had sex with 40,000 men and never contracted an STD

now i don't recommend that you have sex with 40,000 men

but Joe's practice of sex, which is grounded in his belief that sex is sacred, is very conscious and connected

and that's how we all need to be

Re:

4-16-2002

Ouch! This is quite a heated debate here. Without drawing further wrath Bill, the only safe sex is no sex. In a simple biological understanding humans are in constant battle against a host of pathogens, that's life. To deny that is illogical and scientifically flawed. The use of the common cold is a perfect example. From the reams of text the most important two paragraphs surmised what is really important;

" Now -- we have warnings against promiscuity spread throughout the site, and EVERYTHING I write -- fiction or non -- emphasizes romance and life-long attachments.

And it is one of my goals to change m2m culture from one of promiscuity to one of emotional and physical loyalty -- and I believe that change will come."

Stick to the important issues, fidelity and monogamy. Not all wolves come in sheep's clothing, nor is everyone out to get you!

William - NOT an analist!

William WilliamThomas01@yahoo.com

Re:

William

Monogamy is not the only important issue here.

What's also at issue is an attempt by the buttfuck boyz to redefine "safe" so that everything is equally dangerous.

That's exactly what Teddy Snyder did in The Anal Sex Debate at GayToday, and it is complete bullshit.

No one has died from FROT.

HALF A MILLION HAVE DIED FROM ANAL SEX in the US alone.

And I'm not going to let analists or ANYONE ELSE, claiming to be concerned, divorce the word "safe" from frot.

Because it is a gross distortion of the truth.

As it is to say, as you just did, that "the only safe sex is no sex."

That's nonsense.

William -- hundreds of millions of people have sex safely every day -- among them, men into frottage.

What's worse, these sorts of distortions are used to convince gay men that it doesn't matter what they do sexually, that if they're gay they're going to get a fatal disease.

So they might as well get fucked.

Who and what does that belief serve?

The patriarchal, homophobic, religious right -- and the buttfuck boyz.

I'll have no part of that.

Furthermore, I consider the reference to "people being out to get me" a really nasty and unwarranted slur.

I said nothing about people being out to get me.

What I said was that I'd been receiving a lot of mail making specious claims about the relative dangers of frot and anal, and that I wanted to alert our club members to those assertions.

That's one of the primary purposes of the club -- to strengthen the convictions and behavior of men into frot, who are daily assaulted by lies about the validity and safety of their sexual choice.

That's why I posted -- and I was right to do so.

Now -- my question for a person like Emily -- who's so concerned about the health of gay men that she writes a letter objecting to one word on the one site on all the internet that actually promotes safe, genital-to-genital skin-on-skin sex for men who have sex with men and that promotes monogamy throughout the site, even to the extent of having a big notice on its cyberdating board critical of promiscuity -- and I know of NO other m2m site that does that -- my question for her is this:

Who else have you written?

Have you protested to the webmasters of barebacking sites?

Have you written safer-sex educators questioning the way safer-sex monies are spent?

Have you written to Queer as Folk or Six Feet Under protesting the identification of gay with anal?

How bout the NY Times?

Or your local paper?

Have you posted on any message boards, anywhere, about this issue?

I can quarantee you the answer is NO.

But she's so concerned about gay male health that she'll write to me.

In my book, whoever this person is, she's a wolf in sheep's clothing -- she's masquerading as someone concerned about health, but those concerns focus on me, not on anyone else.

At best, that's bizarre.

The problem, William, is that men into FROT have been so cowed by the buttfuck boyz that the moment an analist says "frot isn't safe either" our guys all start checking their penises for signs of HPV.

Once again, let's do a reality check:

It's men into anal who are dying of AIDS -- not men into frot.

It's men into anal who get syphilis and gonorrhea and hepatitis.

Not men into frot.

It's men into anal who are five times more likely to be infected with HPV than nongay men -- and the rate is highest of course among bottoms.

Are men into frot infected with HPV? No one knows, so why assume they are?

And finally, to make it as upclose and personal as I can: it's my lover who died, because he got fucked. But I didn't die, nor did I get infected, despite receiving daily doses of his HIV-laden cum on my cock and balls for years.

And that cum hit my skin AFTER strenuous sessions of cockrub.

So why am I alive and uninfected?

Because there's a big difference between the skin of your penis and the lining of your anus.

Anal penetration is UNIQUELY dangerous because it involves the anus -- an organ not of sexual pleasure, but of elimination, whose delicate lining is coated with pathogens.

That's the problem -- and there's nothing that any analist can say that will change those anatomical facts.

And there's another problem -- which is that despite that danger, anal sex is ENDLESSLY promoted among gay and bi men, while anyone who dares to suggest there might be a better and more reasonable way to go is censored and silenced.

So my challenge to Emily and everyone else reading this who's so concerned about the health of gay men is this:

If you're sincere, don't write to me -- I'm already there.

Write instead to PlanetOut. Or to the Advocate.

Write to the NY Times or your local paper or Queer as Folk.

Write to 365Gay -- which is refusing to take a third article critical of anal.

Write to GayHealth which has NOT put up a page on frot.

Write to somebody.

Do something that challenges the cutural domination of anal penetration.

Cause it's anal penetration and the cultural tyranny of anal penetration that's the problem.

Not frottage.

And not the handful of people out there -- me, the Cockster, EROS V, Chuck Tarver, David McQuarrie -- who are actually fighting that tyranny.

COCKRUB WARRIORS RULE

bill

04-17-2002 10:56pm

Re:

I can't believe some people are actually equating the safety factors between frot and anal. Although I can believe that some that are doing this are doing it to stay "important."

Prior to being partnered, I had a *lot* of frot a *lot* of times and the worst thing that happened to me was a couple cases of crabs -- a couple! Out of a lot of encounters. Not pleasant, but certainly not terminal either. Or even incurable. Now that I'm partnered with a man who, although into anal, completely respects my unwillingness to be violated, even that tiny inconvenience is eliminated and sex is now a healthy thing for me.

Gary Steele gms@gaydelta.com

AND