submissive”) and others not-well, not for Scientific American, anyway. People who derive more pleasure (or perhaps suffer less anxiety or discomfort) from acting as the insertive partner are referred to colloquially as “tops,” whereas those who have a clear preference for serving as the receptive partner are commonly known as “bottoms.” There are plenty of other descriptive slang terms for this gay male dichotomy as well, some repeatable (“pitchers vs. What’s more, the study of self-labels in gay men has considerable applied value, such as its possible predictive capacity in tracking risky sexual behaviors and safe sex practices. The ubiquity of homosexual behavior alone makes it fascinating. Whether we’re talking about a penis in a vagina or one in an anus, it’s human behavior all the same. But the great thing about good science is that it’s amoral, objective and doesn’t cater to the court of public opinion. I’m very much aware that some readers may think that this type of article does not belong on this website. But like most aspects of human sexuality, it’s not quite that simple. Rather, the distinction concerns gay men’s sexual role preferences when it comes to the act of anal intercourse.
No, I’m not referring to the relative generosity or gift-giving habits of homosexuals. This post originally misstated the name of Indiana University.It’s my impression that many straight people believe that there are two types of gay men in this world: those who like to give, and those who like to receive. Photo ( cc) via Flickr user See-ming Lee. The more we know about the way people really have sex, the harder it is to file straight and gay people into easy categories: one safe, the other risky one natural, the other dirty one in this hole, one in the other. He suggests that eligibility questionnaires "be made more detailed for men who've had sex with men, in order to more accurately identify the degree of risk." Hopefully, studies like these can help foster accuracy on a cultural level, too. Gay rights advocate Peter Tatchell has argued that blood donors ought to be treated as individuals, not sexualities. If they do it with a man who also sleeps with men, they'll only be barred from donating blood for one year. At the same time, almost half of straight women today will engage in anal sex. When they are, many of them use protection. This study suggests that many gay men are not even regularly engaging in anal sex, the sexual activity that puts them at greatest risk of disease transmission.
#GAY MEN MAKING LOVE IN BED MANUAL#
draws a distinction between engaging in oral, anal, or manual sex, the United States bans gay men from donating blood for life if they've ever engaged in sex with another man.
When blood screeners ask men if they've ever had sex with another man, what do they mean? Though the U.K.
#GAY MEN MAKING LOVE IN BED SERIES#
The most common series of activities in the encounter-reported by 16 percent of men-involved "holding their partner romantically, kissing partner on mouth, solo masturbation, masturbating partner, masturbation by partner, and genital–genital contact." Half of participants who engaged in anal sex employed a condom. By contrast, only 36 percent of men reporting receiving anal sex and 34 percent of men reporting giving it. Around 75 percent of participants reported kissing their partners, giving oral sex, and/or receiving oral sex in their most recent sexual encounters. The results: Despite the popular perception, "sexual behaviors involving the anus were least common," researchers found. Did it involve kissing, cuddling, masturbation, oral sex, anal sex? Did it happen with a boyfriend, spouse, stranger, or sex worker? Was it in a car, a home, a club? Were condoms used? The study hopes to combat "the almost exclusive focus" on HIV in most academic research on gay male sexual behavior, as well as to increase understanding of the "diversity and complexity of these men’s sexual lives." To do that, they asked gay and bisexual-identified men ages 18 to 87 to chart their most recent sexual experience.
In the Journal of Sexual Medicine, researchers from Indiana University and George Mason University surveyed nearly 25,000 gay and bisexual men in an effort to better understand how they experience sex.